2017 Lotus Evora 400 First Drive Review: Adding Civility Along with Lightness

Motor Trend staffers proved largely immune to the charms of the last supercharged Lotus Evora S. We hated its cramped, off-center pedal box, cornball ergonomics, and peculiar tendency to oversteer when entering a corner and understeer exiting it. It finished last in our 2011 Best Drivers' Car competition. Well, Lotisti, rejoice. Although the 2017 Lotus Evora 400 may look like a minor freshening of that S, two-thirds of its constituent parts are brand new. Most of those new part numbers were released for one of three reasons: 1) to achieve and manage the new 400-horsepower rating, 2) to remove the weight added by the go-faster bits so that the new car could advertise a 13-pound weight reduction, and 3) to achieve full U.S. certification with no waivers. (Lotus is the smallest company to accomplish this.)

Parts from that first category include a new Edelbrock Roots-type supercharger that increases boost from 2.9 psi to 8.7 psi and (more important) adds an air-to-water intercooler circuit. Together, these upgrades help cram about 40 percent more air into the cylinders to deliver that 55-hp, 7-lb-ft bump in output. The manual transmission also got a cooler to ensure reliable track performance. Tailoring the handling dynamics to suit the new powertrain called for revised springs, dampers, and static geometry, and wider rear tires (285/30R20 up from 275/30R20). Arresting that extra power are AP Racing (Brembo U.K.) brake discs that grow considerably from 13.8 to 14.6 inches in front and from 13.1 to 13.8 inches in back. Both are 1.3-inch-wide vented and perforated "composite" units (aluminum centers with steel friction surfaces) that are nearly as light as carbon ceramics but way less costly to purchase and maintain.

To identify parts that could be lightened for the second category, Lotus disassembled the car in a big room, labeling every part with its weight and cost. Then the engineers just walked around the room nominating parts to be deleted (such as the electric motor that used to open the glove-box door) or lightened (such as the steel shifter linkage, which now becomes aluminum and beautiful). Note also that if 13 pounds lighter isn't enough, the options list lets you hack another 93 pounds off by ditching the 18-pound A/C and 20-pound rear seat for no charge, switching to a 22-pound-lighter lithium battery for $1,690, or swapping in a titanium exhaust to save another 22 pounds ($8,000), among other things. Add all 93 pounds of lightness, and the tab rises by $20 grand.

Other new parts for homologation and to fix all the stuff we hated about the Evora S include door side-impact beams, revised bumpers, new switchgear, and changes to the structural tub that widen the pedal box by 3.3 inches and lower the sills by 2.2 inches, making them 1.7-inches narrower. To preserve the nearly 20,000-lb-ft-per-degree torsional stiffness, Lotus modified the sheer plates and bonding and joining strategy elsewhere on the aluminum tub. And it's not only easier to get in and out of the Evora 400, but it's also an awful lot nicer to sit in—and not just because the Sparco seats travel 1.2 inches farther aft. The fit and finish of the hand-sewn leather interiors we sampled at Gingerman represented a quantum leap forward for the brand. There's even a new navigation and infotainment system, but although it may be sleeker than before, it still has an aftermarket look, and its controls are less than intuitive. This car earns its $93,785 base price far more convincingly than the 2011 Evora S did its $77,175 tab.

To highlight these improvements, Lotus invited us for a lapping session at Gingerman raceway in western Michigan. The car is absolute magic on the track. The rear seatlet is so small that you're unaware it's there. Perhaps the center of gravity is sitting in it; the car seems to rotate about a point roughly where a hapless child's inboard knee would be. That's where you want a car rotating, by the way. And the steering effort is exceptionally pure, what with just 40 percent of its roughly 3,150 pounds burdening the front tires. It helps that those front tires are free to allot 100 percent of their friction-circle capabilities to lateral grip. (This is Lotus, after all, and all-wheel drive adds neither simplicity nor lightness.) Brake pedal feel is exceptionally linear and fade-free, and the chassis can easily be induced to rotate as much or as little as you like with little or no understeer when powering out of a properly executed corner.

The Lotus suspension gurus wisely steer clear of adjustable suspensions. They set up an ideal ride/handling tradeoff and sell it to every market. The stability control and throttle/exhaust valve mapping can be altered between normal, Sport, Race, and off modes, however. Each allows progressively larger chassis slip angles, with Race mode hanging the tail out plenty far enough to obviate my need to sample the off mode.

Apart from the lack of oil spotting on the ground, this engine offers no clue that its ancestry is Japanese and that its kissing cousin is the lowly Toyota Camry. Its song at full boil is a pure baritone/tenor aria, the exhaust-dominated note thoroughly shouting down any hint of supercharger whine (and there's certainly no phony baloney "sound symposing"). It pulls strongly enough from 3,500 rpm that many of the tighter turns at western Michigan's Gingerman Raceway can easily be negotiated in third gear. But between the rifle-bolt-precise aluminum shift mechanism with its shortened cable linkage and ideally spaced extruded aluminum pedals that make swapping gears and heel/toe throttle blipping so much fun, it's easy to convince yourself that maybe second gear was fractionally better in each of those turns. One big constructive criticism here: Some audible or visual system of indicating that the redline is approaching would be very useful—perhaps even in the automatic car.

Speaking of the automatic, I managed to sample an Evora with this powertrain on the lumpy public roads near Gingerman. The Toyota-derived Aisin box is well-tailored to sports car duty, delivering hard, fast throttle-blipping downshifts whenever braking tops 0.7 g. The downshifting strategy in the Sport and Race is impressively intuitive about selecting the proper gear for every occasion. Rubberized aluminum shift paddles allow you to shift for yourself, but on a few occasions I noted that either the tach needle was lazy, or the upshift was delayed, because I had a few unintended redline throttle cuts.

The suspension's suppleness reminded me of the first new Lotus I ever drove—a late-'80s Esprit Turbo. That car and this one both do an admirable job of keeping the tires pressed to scabrous pavement without inflicting kidney trauma. There is, however, an ungodly amount of road noise admitted to the cabin. Here's hoping the engineering side of the house manages to develop an ultra-light road-noise-canceling system that could be switched on in the normal/Touring mode.

Lotus' triumphant return to the U.S. market will become official when the first 50 cars hit dealerships near the end of August. With 250 cars pre-sold, orders placed now won't arrive until early 2017. If you're waiting for a spider version, it's at least two years away, and the further lightened Sport 410 coupe is not homologated for U.S. delivery, but you can import any Lotus as a non-street-legal track toy. Based on today's drive, it'd probably make a great one.