'A ruptured fire hydrant of pleasurable endorphins'
Thank you, Lotus. After recent sparks of spring with an Audi, where the engine "brims with futurism, a chamfered, beveled cutting tool of high-speed atmosphere," Dan Neil publishes a truly inspired work of auto criticism in the Los Angeles Times with the sexy 2010 Lotus Evora.
A ruptured fire hydrant of pleasurable endorphins, the Evora is the first all-new car from Lotus — a small sports-car company in Hethel, England — since it was reborn with the Lotus Elise in 1995. The company goes back to the 1950s and founder Colin Chapman, whose guiding principle in fast cars was extreme lightness. Lightness cures what ails sports cars like Lourdes cures scabies. All other things being equal, lighter cars change direction more quickly (less mass, therefore a lower moment of inertia). Likewise, lighter cars have better cornering grip (the vehicle's weight doesn't overwhelm the tires). A lighter car accelerates harder and stops more quickly. Meanwhile, all the stresses on the components are reduced — the tires, brakes, suspension and gearbox. It's one big, beautiful, positive spiral.
And:
The biggest difference between Lotuses and other cars is that Lotuses love to slide: Bend them into a corner at high speed, give the suspension a millisecond to compress and just hang on. The Evora arcs along in a perfectly peaceful, drama-free four-wheel drift. Lotus might as well have a patent on this feeling. Exiting a tight hairpin, you can get on the gas hard — the traction control system offers minimal interference — and the car swivels with heavenly, progressive power-on oversteer, gaining degrees of crossed-up heroism until you breathe the throttle. Bang the rev limiter, slam the gear. Ya-freakin'-hoo. It's like corner-carving on skis in fresh powder. My God, that's fun.
And:
Is a Porsche Cayman S quicker and faster? Yeah, probably, a little, if you judge things so parlously as to measure your life in tenths of a second. The Evora is a connoisseur's car, a driver's shibboleth and secret code, a prime number of a machine that is indivisible by anything other than itself.
