If you want to write a history for the centennial development process of the automobile, then the form of telling this history must be a chronicle. From the first internal combustion engine car on the road to the fully hands-free intelligent driving, in the nearly 150 years, we have witnessed too many great car inventors, engineers and brand founders.
Some covet the high-pitched vocal lines of the large-row high-spin self-propelled engine built by Enzo Ferrari, the father of Ferrari, others regard the 911 built by Ferdinand Porsche, the father of Porsche, as a small goal of life struggle, and some people put the aerodynamic design pioneered by Colin Chapman, the father of Lotus, on the altar. These three major sports car brands have their own advantages in terms of technology and products, and have countless fans around the world, but to ask who is the most personality and the most extreme, it must be Lotus.
From the warehouse to the domination of the arena
The Lotus brand is a lifelong masterpiece by Colin Chapman. Mr. Chapman was a typical British gentleman, with his trademark little beard always neatly trimmed, and he also had the status of engineer, pilot and racing driver. From the time he built lotus mark I in his wife's warehouse in 1948, his name began to have a profound impact on the world of motor sports.
Under his leadership, Lotus Racing has won 7 F1 Manufacturers' Annual Championships and 6 Drivers' Championships since 1958, and has pioneered a number of F1 racing techniques and derived a number of excellent racing cars in history. In 1963, the Type 25, which used single-shell load-bearing body technology for the first time, was unveiled on the race track, and won the F1 championship of both team and driver in F1 that year, relying on its light weight and high strength.
Chapman, who has always pursued innovation in racing design, launched the Type 72 with a side-mounted heatsink in 1972, and pioneered the development of a wedge design with lower wind resistance, replacing the front of the traditional front radiator, and the application of this technology completely changed the shape of F1 cars since then. Later, in 1978, Chapman broke through the concept of ground effects into F1 and applied them to the body design of the Type 79, relying on this pioneering ground effect car, Lotus won six F1 races that year and once again won the team and drivers' championships of the year.
Chapman from the university days, driven by the enthusiasm of automotive sports and the solid foundation of structural engineering, constantly try innovative technology, with a favorite racing car, confirmed his whimsical ideas, and then created brilliant achievements in the field of auto sports events, and left a valuable technical wealth for the history of the world automotive industry.
From the ultimate sports car to the all-around sports car
The glory of the race has given both Chapman and Lotus names a halo, and the return to the sports car market, the myth of Lotus continues. Helping the driver to achieve the best communication with the vehicle and the road is fundamental to Lotus's "everything for the driver" philosophy and is also a common quality of every sports car with Lotus logos.
Debuting at the Frankfurt Motor Show in 1995, Elise was described at the time as the most advanced sports car in the world, named after the granddaughter of Lotus's then-chairman Romano Artioli. It has made revolutionary breakthroughs in body design and manufacturing processes, with epoxy bonded extruded aluminum chassis, high-performance suspension and lightweight bodywork becoming lotus's first classics. Its simplicity, lightness, purity and innovation, once launched, it has brought a huge impact to the market, and has been named "road kart" by countless fans. It was not until this year that the last Lotus Elise was officially produced off the production line, and its delivery object was the source of Elise's name , Elisa Artioli, elise's 27 years of service, finally came to a successful end.
Fast forward to 2021, and Lotus ushered in the masterpiece of the fuel era - Emira. Its appearance represents Lotus's perseverance, the passage of time but the persistence is still the same, with pure driving experience as the core, the sports car into an art. Continuing the design language of the 20 million-level supercar Evija, inheriting the porosity design concept, Emira is also a "breathing Lotus", galloping in the wind and calling for higher speed. Its appearance also represents the change of Lotus, as the most versatile road sports car lotus in the history of Lotus, the Emira in the name of "leader" has added more practical and comfortable elements of technology, setting a clear vane for the future towards a broader market.
The new track is ready to be charged
A great species must have the ability to evolve, and in the same way, a great brand must have both the courage to innovate and innovate. In 2018, Lotus celebrated the 70th anniversary of the brand and looked back on its glorious history, while also focusing on the transformation and development of the future. The launch of the Vision 80 brand revitalization plan announces that Lotus has become the first pioneer in the global traditional fuel sports car brand to fully transform to electrification and intelligence.
As Lotus's first work towards the era of electrification, the pure electric supercar Evija, which came out in 2019, not only has the strongest power performance Lotus has ever had, but also shows Lotus's exploration of aerodynamics for more than 70 years. In Evija, Lotus pioneered a new aerodynamic design language – "porosity". There are up to 16 ingenious aerodynamic kits in the whole car, plus 2 exaggerated Venturi tunnels, which allow air to pass through the body, achieving ultra-low wind resistance, and at the same time using the body holes to form a "ground effect", obtaining a downforce of 1.8 tons that exceeds its own weight. Lotus has not stopped at the extreme, and the first supercar after the transformation has refreshed the inherent cognition of the automotive industry for product design and performance advantages.
Evija's benchmarking for the future of pure electric products to provide design ideas and technical support, on March 29, 2022, Lotus's first pure electric intelligent SUV Type 132 will usher in the world debut, from its body, we once again see the unique Lotus brand heritage and the ultimate embodiment. The Type 132 not only uses the industry's top 800V triple-power system, but also can easily achieve zero hundred acceleration in 3 seconds. In terms of appearance, it also inherits the Evija's porous design concept, active grille, active rear spoiler, lifting lidar and a large number of carbon fiber kits, resulting in a better aerodynamic design and combat-explosive visual effects. How it will interpret the legend of the wind is really exciting.
Once the king of the track, today's electric upstart, every time Lotus becomes popular, it is permeated with the ultimate momentum in its bones. As Colin Chapman once said, "If you haven't won yet, you haven't worked hard enough." The forthcoming Lotus Type 132 global conference in London, England, on March 29, will once again give fans around the world a powerful visual impact and the ultimate shocking experience.