Lotus Ends Production Of Iconic Sports Cars After 26 Years

After 26 years, Lotus Cars bids farewell to some of its most iconic sports cars. The Elise, Exige and Evora have led the company’s product portfolio for about 2 decades and have seen a total of 51,738 cars produced between them. Another 9,715 sports cars that were derivations of the Elise were produced for companies like GM and Tesla.

The Elise and Exige are built around the Lotus “small car platform” which was also used to manufacture the Opel Speedster/Vauxhall VX220 and Tesla Roadster in the same factory at Hethel in the UK. Other models belonging to this platform were the Lotus 340R, Europa, 2-Eleven and 3-Eleven.

The first-generation Elise and Exige, built from 1996 to 2000, were built in a small assembly hall. It was only in 2000 that the current assembly lines were installed. However, they too will now be replaced with a new state-of-the-art facility to support the production of the all-new Emira. Production begins next year after the company completes its testing phases.

Lotus’ aging trio is being phased out to make way for a new crop of vehicles the like the Emira as well as the Evija (electric hypercar) and a yet to be revealed electric SUV, the Type132. The last Elise to roll of the assembly line is a Sport 240 Final Edition finished in Yellow, the last Exige, a Cup 430 Final Edition in Heritage Racing Green and the last Evora, a GT430 Sport finished in Dark Metallic Grey.

These cars will not be sold to the general public but reserved for Lotus’ heritage collection. Speaking of the sendoff Matt Windle, Managing Director, Lotus Cars, said:

“As we say farewell to the last few cars, we look forward to the Emira and Evija in the all-new factories at Hethel and sub-assembly facilities in Norwich, which introduce greater efficiencies and automation, higher quality and flexibility and the hugely exciting next chapter in our Vision80 strategy.”