A successor to one of my favourite cars of all time, the Lotus Esprit, has been given the green light by Lotus.

It is known internally as the Esprit, but it may receive a different name when released to public. They are targeting a power-to-weight ratio of 275bhp-325bhp per tonne. I really love the old Esprit, and hopefully this will be a worthy successor.

The car is part of the seven-year business plan which CEO Danny Bahr is due to release in a few weeks. This plan also include selling the Evora platform technology to other manufacturers (Not completely getting rid of it, simply producing the platform and selling it to others, the Evora will still be produced using this platform). The platform is very versatile, hence its name, Versatile Vehicle Architecture (VVA). The platform can be adapted to create almost any type of car. To show this, Lotus released an illustration of an electric drivetrain fitted to the platform, but Lotus will not actually produce this. Another part of the plan is a three-tier line up. The Elise, Exige and Europa would all be part of one group, the Evora in another, and the Esprit successor would be the third group. Since these are supposed to be groups, maybe this means that cars similar to the Evora and Esprit are planned, though it may be like that simply because the first group has 3 cars in it. We’ll make sure to check for this in the business plan when it is released. Lastly, Lotus is also going to be working on eight hybrid and electric car projects for other manufacturers.

Source: Autocar