Jimmy-D

Been sniffing around the internet doing quite a bit of reading/research. As a Purist's car sounds like this will quite a catch with the Manual. Radio and AC delete ect.- just go light and opt for the titanium exhaust. Looks all business for a weekend toy.

Thinking about maybe trading GT4 early (after Winter) for the 991.2 GT3 and try to get one of these for a 6 - 12 months if I can get my hands on one. I only have room for one so that is why would trade early so can put this one is the garage. I like the yellow with the black stripes.

Thoughts???

PS- I always play these mind games with myself when there is some thing new that interests me

AfricanHunter

i haven't had seat time in an evora 400 but stopped looking at them when I found out only paddles and lotus isn't bringing the exige 350 or v6cup to usa.

Besides the english reliability factor and lotus always on the brink of bankruptcy (plus the fact that lotus dealers wont service anything older than 1990(I am pulling from memory)) makes me leary of getting one.

Sweet handling cars though

depreciation likely a killer

4carl

Tracked Lotus's for eight years and got to know the cars and the company well. Drove the Evora on track when they first came out. Very nice but nowhere as sharp as my well set up Exige S.
The thing with Lotus is they are kit-carish . The good thing is they are simple cars to work on which is good because what doesnt come easily, falls off. Get use to doing a full nut and bolt before and after a track day.

One thing is they are very arbitrary on how they honor their warranty claims. I saw them replace engines on race cars sold with no warranty and refuse legit claims on street cars if they didn't like the owner or the owner said something negative about them on a forum.

With that said i had over 10,000 track miles and 36,000 total on my Exige. I pulled a ecu-dump and it had 122 hours @7.5-8k rpm on the toyota 2ZZ with still 220 PSI compression and the cams were perfect.

Unfortunately the way its going thats something the 991 GT3 owners will never see. carl

mooty

^ i had 20000 miles on 190hp exige and maybe 40 track days. never an issue.
and carl is right, stuff just FALL off... but no impact on performance i felt
japanese really knows how to build engines.
germans..... well, give them 20 years they will figure out the 9A1 family just like they did with mezger

Sven76

I used to have 2 Lotus (Elise R and Evora S) and while I acknowledge that Lotus is taking the right direction lately, I will never get one again, kit cars build by drunken chimpanzees without a proper plan (something like this was how Jeremy Clarkson described the build quality).

jlee504

I loved my Elise back in the day, best handling car I've ever had. But I never know whether Lotus is in business or not and that worries me..

Why are you planning to sell the GT4 already??

skxf430

I don't think the 410's will make it to the U.S.

FORENN

Yes, they are supposed to come to the United States.

I was tempted to try Lotus several times but with no Lotus dealership or service department near me, the stories left me too nervous to pull the trigger.

squid42

Can you do engine rebuilds with Toyota spare parts? Just in case they go out of business...

A friend says "ziplock ties and velcro" but "worth it". FWIW.

4carl

The 2ZZ is out of production. It was originally from a Toyota GTS. It also was used in the Pontiac Vibe. Lotus did have some in stock but they wanted $ 13k for one. Pontiac sold it for $4k but you needed a VIN. So what guys would do was pick up an Auto Trader and find one for sale record the VIN and go to the local Pontiac dealer and use it to order one for $4k. There were guys in our group that had 2 spares in their garage.

I will say one thing when I bought my first Elise I also had a 996 GT3 & 996GT2 that I tracked. Within three months I sold them both because they felt like I was driving a bus compaired to the Lotus on track ..Carl

Jimmy-D

Probably not- I love my GT4 but will trade for the 991.2 GT3.

I always had the Lotus itch that started back over 25 years ago. My older Brother had a white Convertible Lotus Elan that was so much fun back in the day. And to this day; the Lotus Espirit was always an eye catcher. Still love the design. The 410 on paper looks freakin pretty good for a hardcore purist car with a manual. Just very tempting to scratch the itch and supposedly Lotus stepped it up beginning with the Lotus 400- but not one to tolerate crappy build quality which is a shame to hear repeatedly.

maroli

The cars are available with a manual. In fact, Lotus has one of the lowest uptakes of automatic gearboxes of any car brand...unless something happened for the US market that I don't know about. There is a manual coupe 400 being sold in the US that was used in R&T's test....

maroli

I love the GT4, but if I were given the option blind...I'd take the 410. I was always an Evora fan though, so I can definitely see the other side. The Porsche does all of these things better: engine, build quality, interior, reliability, support. Which is a lot of things.

AfricanHunter

my mistake then. I went to see the 400 but really wanted the new exige v6. The 400 they had was paddles. Either assumed or was told paddle only. The exposed linkage in the exige 350s is gorgeous but got confirmed they are not coming to US. Evora interior quality much better than previous lotai. Not Porsche/Ferrari/bmw level but solid. Call it tesla level

sharkster

Really still like my 2011S. Magical suspension truly and although Jeremy's clarkson can be odd at the best of times his review of it on top gear a few years back nailed it. The nat geo lotus factory special (mostly on the evora) gives it some charm if you're into hand made stuff... talked to some journos over the last few weeks and they really like the new evora even more.