With the proliferation of new – often electric – supercar brands with amazing models, historic sports car manufacturers have to monetize their heritage and their craft and technological know-how. A path that Aston Martin and Ferrari have already taken with their respective divisions Q and Tailor Made. Now it’s Lotus’ turn to go ultra-exclusive with Lotus Advanced Performance.
Exclusivity as a credo
At the head of Lotus Advanced Performance is Simon Lane, who came over from Aston Martin, where he was head of… the Q department. So the man knows what he is talking about and says he is delighted to have the opportunity to “create the most exciting and exclusive Lotus cars, which embrace our electrified future while also honoring our illustrious past.”
The aim is to offer customers a unique model that is completely different from the ‘normal’ Lotus range, but still has a link with the brand. Lotus Advanced Performance will also develop exclusive customization elements for production models, including Lotus specific colours, coatings and materials with highly exclusive and desirable specifications.
Close connection with the competition
Before unveiling the first ‘unique’ projects, Lotus Advanced Performance (LAP) will provide owners of the new Lotus Emira Support GT4 and provide driving stages. Subsequently, a street version of the GT4 could possibly be developed under the umbrella of LAP.
However, LAP has already lifted a corner of the veil of its first exclusive creation. It appears to be a single-seater heavily inspired by a historic Formula 1. It is not specified whether the model will be powered by a combustion engine or an electric one, but the photo already shows two exhaust pipes.
Following the example of Aston Martin and Ferrari
Lotus is thus entering the field of two other legendary sports car manufacturers: Aston Martin and Ferrari. On the Italian side, the Tailor Made program presents two main trends: the creation, at the customer’s request, of a unique item based on an existing model, or the production of very limited series of new models, paying tribute to the sporty past of the brand and where a current drive unit is used. Like the Monza SP1 and SP2 and the Daytona SP3†
Aston Martin’s Q division offers services more focused on extreme customization of models from the current catalog, but can equally create one-offs or very limited editions, such as the DBS Superleggera Concorde Edition, a tribute to the three Aston Martin factories built on Royal Air Force airbases, with production limited to 10 units.
The other iconic model is the V12 Speedster, the British equivalent of the Ferrari Monza SP1 and SP2 and limited to 88 units. But the Q department can also look into historic models, such as the DB5 Goldfinger – an exact replica of James Bond’s car, with working versions of almost every gadget seen in the Goldfinger movie. It concerns a series of 25 cars that are not homologated for use on public roads.
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