Posted on Friday 29 February 2008
Car shows are typically about bringing new concepts to the press and showing the virtues of production models to the public. Geneva’s auto show is typically no exception, but Lotus has decided to do something a bit unorthodox, and instead of showing a whole car, it will show a portion of the chassis of its upcoming Eagle 2+2.
We saw spy shots of the car in winter testing earlier this week, and rumors of the expanded Elise-platfrom car have been floating through the press for nearly two years, but the first glance we’ll see of the actual item, sans disguise, will be a rather technical glimpse at a portion of the front end subframe. Sure, it shows the attached suspension and brake package, but it’s not the front of the Eagle that is expected to differ from the Elise it’s based on. The mid-engine coupe will be expanded aft of the bucket seats to enable the insertion of a small set of rear seats, so it’s the rear subframe and passenger tub that will get the most extensive revision.
In effect, Lotus could take the front subframe of the Elise, call it that of the Eagle, and absent a a micrometer and a shop manual, you’d probably be hard-pressed to tell the difference. But in Lotus’s eyes, that’s a virtue, and part of what it calls its VVA (Versatile Vehicle Architecture) which allows a variety of cars to be built on a small set of shared components. This allows the company to bring products to market more quickly and for less cost than traditional separate platform development. It also avoids the pitfalls of producing a totally generic platform that would incorporate too many compromises to be worthy of the Lotus badge.
The entire aluminum structure to be displayed weighs a scant 25kg, absent the suspension and brakes. The light weight design is in keeping with decades old Lotus philosophy, and will help the new Eagle weigh as little as possible. This light weight will insure spritely handling and green performance, since less weight to accelerate means better fuel efficiency when it’s needed most. Nevertheless, the strength of the structure and the other modules in the VVA plan allow for the development of vehicles with a gross weight of 1,900kg - roughly twice the weight of an Elise.
Lame.
The Elise is not based on VVA and pretty much anyone could tell the difference between Eagle and Elise fornt end as the elise one is a part of the single chassis structure while Eag;e requires the VVA corner units to attach it to the rest of the frame! I’m not an auto jouornalist and I know this stuff - where do you get your information from?
Agreement with Mark, there’s no front subframe like this on an Elise, there’s a plastic subframe which mounts the radiator, but no sub frame remotely like this specimen. Comparing the Elise’s bonded extrusions with this Meccano-esque VVA sub-assembly is like comparing chalk and cheese.
Can’t wait to see it - an original tease like this isn’t lame at all, it’s actually very cool. It follows the example of the unveiling of the Elise, with a polish chassis displayed alongside the prototype show car. They have my anticipation properly aroused.