Lotus Emira vs Porsche 718 Cayman GTS vs Alpine A110S | Which would you buy? (4K)
The last time Lotus launched an all-new sports car Gordon Brown was Prime Minister apple had just launched the new Iphone and Tesla was a startup still making cars out of Lotuses. Well the Lotus they were launching then was the Evora that was 14 years ago and this is its replacement the Lotus Emira. it's got some heavy lifting to do this car as well though because it's not just the replacement for the avora but also the exige and the elise as well and that's why you're gonna get a choice of four-cylinder engines so four cylinder from mercedes amg but also the v6 the 3.5 liter supercharged v6 in terms of performance figures this car's got 400 brake horsepower 310 pound foot of torque and get from not to 60 in 4.3 seconds and go 180 miles an hour flat out lois has been a
little bit vague about weight and obviously weight is very very important to lotus and they're saying from 1405 kilos this is the v6 so clearly that's going to be slightly different it's also got the manual so where that ends up i'm not sure it's a manual would be lighter than the dct transmission that's standard with a four-cylinder um but let's call it somewhere in the mid-1400s i would say we just accelerate you can probably hear it's pretty loud that it shouldn't really be this loud so it's a tooling tryout not perfectly representative of a production car and when i was driving around just getting ready for this video it started to make an awful lot more noise i don't know if a valve stuck open somewhere in the exhaust but you can probably hear it feels and sounds pretty raucous so from behind the wheel then you've got a nice low down driving position i think it could go a little bit lower still but it's still quite low i'm quite happy here really feels quite a wide car it's mid-engined obviously so you've got a very low bonnet line as well so because you've got these raised wheel arches low bonnet nice low driving position actually i feel like i've got a very good view over the road feel very connected to it so yeah i would like it to go a little bit lower but generally i'm pretty happy here the steering wheel is clearly a bit of an odd shape it's got some very chunky spokes because of the multi-function controls here so prefer those to be a bit thinner maybe a more conventional shape but the thickness of the rim is is nice your thumb slot into it nice and easily and also classic lotus here look a hand span to the gear knob there as well so that's not an accident that's a you know very very intentionally done and it's also inspired by the esprit here this interiors worth noting is the way these uh door cards raise up so that places the gear shift quite handily for your right hand as well the steering feel in this car is absolutely exceptional as you'd expect of a lotus but you know i think it's better than the ebora is better than the abort and that's really unusual these days for a car to succeed another car and have better steering feel big part of that is because that's still an electro hydraulic uh setup so the the pumps hydraulic is controlled electronically and but you still got that hydraulic kind of feel and that detail that you get with that it's really really nicely weighted and it kind of it's very busy in your hands in terms of communicating but it's not excessively noisy in terms of kickback and giving you too much sort of distortion from the surface now we said we're on the stiffer chassis the sports chassis they are passive dampers as well so you can't switch them between modes there are different modes to switch between but they don't affect the suspension at all that's more about engine calibration and you know at low speed in in villages and things it can be a bit knobbly of course you've got the the softer tour set up if that's what you're doing more of the time and but for a typical b road at speed you get some speed under the wheels and it settles down and it really starts to breathe with the road while being very very controlled you know not a lot of body roll very very direct and responsive and i think combined with that steering you know it doesn't feel crazy fast at first the steering and it isn't crazy fast but when you turn it in quickly it really shoots in there and feels very very responsive i didn't get on with the gearbox at first it's a six-speed manual it's relatively light shift in some ways but it's quite uh quite close across the gate and also when you go to engage and punch it home it does need quite a direct movement to that that final slot home i felt like i was quite likely to miss shift at first and i think just with acclimatization you get used to it and also just encourages you to take a bit more of a physical approach with it and when you do it's actually quite a satisfying feeling especially when you're blipping on the downshift like that i've totally got used to it now and it's just it's just second nature but there's definitely a feeling that you need that push home to really get it working now this engine is a 3.5 liter v6 supercharged v6 as shared with toyota i'm familiar from the avora of course there is a little bit of a hole in the power delivery loadout and it's not bonkers quick because it's 400 brake horsepower 1400 or so kilos but what it is is more than fast enough and once you get it out of that hole at the bottom of the rev range it's um once you get it out of that hole at the bottom of the rev range get it to like i think it's about 4100 it really kind of picks up and the noise shifts as well when it sounds like it should do which it doesn't at the moment it sounds a lot better i did just miss shift a little bit there to be honest i'm still getting used to it of course the key to this car as well is the handling and this doesn't disappoint this is an extremely enjoyable car to thread down a road like this which is after all what it's made for it's made for a brilliant british b road so you turn it in really nicely weighted steering just a little bit of roll but it's very nicely gathered up very prompt turning as well good brakes let's just head up here as well you see the balance on this car as well so if we turn it in here so it's got an awful lot of traction so we've got more grip in terms of the cup two tires available we're on the on the good years and you know the good years are very very sticky basically when you go around regular corners it's it's kind of a steady state no understeer in terms of terrible waiting it out to turn but there is certainly you lean on the front and just wait a little bit it's quite fragile you know it's it's it does the business but it's not crazy crazy rapid but it's the corners you can carry so much speed the chassis works so well that you know it doesn't matter that it's not massively powerful if you use the chassis and the grip and the brakes it is pretty amazing the balance is you know you feel like you're you're pushing a little bit on the front it's not really frustrating understeer by any means but it's definitely a kind of you get to the limit and it nudges out a bit especially in kind of something smaller like a roundabout or a corner where you can play with the weight distribution more and you bring that mid-engine balance into play but it's very very short-footed a little bit of understeering steady-state stuff and just very very very grippy it doesn't really want to showboat and that's that's you know i think the avora when that first came out it was quite a sideways car this is it's very very tied down quite a serious car for lap times but also very enjoyable as well so if you bring this car into a corner very very grippy a little bit of lean on the front there a little bit to the rear but it's very very sticky very intuitive it just wants to get gripping and get going again it doesn't feel crazy crazy rapid at first but as you go into a corner you need to put in some lock suddenly you jab it in there and the whole car just moves as a piece it's very together there's no kind of slop and waiting for it to turn it just fires into the corner when you're going around steady-state corners and leaning on it it's definitely a feeling that that when you push it's gonna push a little bit at the front and it lets you know the limits there and and you just lean on that you can make it pivot but but that's more in things like you know a corner where you can play with a weight transfer a little bit more so like a roundabout or a tighter corner something like this now it's just gonna hook up and power out i think one thing with this chassis is that it just could deal with so much more power and i don't think that's that's a negative comment on this car i think it's very very capable and clearly they're going to dial it up over the years to come but what it means is you can just lay into all this power and really it's about carrying momentum using the braking using the balance of this car to extract all that performance and when you do that it all just hangs together very very harmoniously indeed pixar is picking up and now's the point when over 4 000 rpm that's when it really starts to work so the amir is a great car to drive really really satisfying especially over a b road we got a steering the ride the grip all that kind of just fusing into one the problem for the lotus is the competitive set because this segment is absolutely bursting with talon now there are a few better benchmarks than the porsche cayman for a decade and a half this has been the go-to coupe sports car and with good reason this car just does so many things so well now the 718 range kicks off below 50 000 pounds but that's with a flat 4 turbocharged engine this car is the 4 liter gts and it's the engine that cayman really deserves it's the 4 liter naturally aspirated flat 6 a variant of the same engine used in the hardcore 80 000 pound cayman gt4 and well just listen to this now that engine puts the claymore on a more even footing with the amira firstly in terms of performance it's got the thick end of 400 horsepower so this is a truly quick car and also in terms of price now the 4 liter gts kicks off below 70 000 pounds but with a few options and porsche knows how to charge for options as we all know this car's in the mid 70s so very much on par with the first edition of era now there's something magical about the way the cayman handles it's got in theory less advanced suspension it's a strut based suspension setup whereas the other cars are double wishbones but this car is so confidence inspiring all those cliches about being at one with the car feeling like the car's an extension of you all that stuff it really applies with the cayman i mean heading around here instant response and you just have options all the time you need to add a bit of lock mid corner no problem you want to break a bit later it's always on your side always willing you to just enjoy yourself and i mean there are very few cars that you feel quite so comfortable with straight away the kind of getting to know you stage and driving a new car just isn't there in a cayman within a couple of miles you feel like you've been driving it all your life this car has a manual gearbox you can have the cayman gts with a pdk so double clutch gearbox paddles on the wheel but this is a proper h-pattern manual gearbox has very long gearing which to some people is a bit of a bug bear with the 718s but one of the upsides to that is you get a chance to really hear the engine sing as you ring it out i mean have a listen to this that flat 6 soundtrack is a key part of this car's appeal although the amira is not too shabby in the soundtrack stakes either now there's an auto blip function you can hear these beautiful crisp down changes i'm ashamed to say i'm not doing them myself that's the auto blip function doing it but you can change with this little drive switch control here change the settings and you can diy heel and toe yourself if you like and it's a beautiful pet setup on the pedals to do that and such a user-friendly gearbox you can change gear so smoothly so quickly and you always feel like the car's on your side again there's that incredible user friendliness and usability that sense of usability that user friendliness extends to everyday mundane stuff as well first of all your all-round visibility is incredibly easy to see out of i mean not only a head into the sides but over the shoulder as well that flat engine means you have a lot of glass behind you and uh it's a really easy car to reverse and to park which isn't always the case with mid engine sports cars if you were going to choose a car to drive into the middle of town park on the streets you'd be absolutely fine in a cayman the other advantage it has is that it's actually quite a practical car it's got two boots and the boot in the front is absolutely huge it's really quite cavernous and there's a decently usable beach in the back as well plus a luggage shelf above that flat six engine that's actually one kind of mark in its favor above the amira and the usability stakes because the lotus doesn't actually have a boot at the front that cab forward design means uh all that space is taken up by crash structure by those clever aero ducts sort of layered arrow design and by cooling so you don't have the advantage of two boots in the amira just a reasonably sized boot at the back the cayman isn't perfect however the driving position can be tricky to get comfortable in this manual car with its long clutch pedal the aircon controls are fiddly and you can't see them if the gear lever is in first or third plus you have to pay more for proper climate control as an optional extra the cayman has some pretty vicious road noise too subjectively the lotus is a little bit quieter at a cruise perhaps the biggest criticism you could level at the cayman however is a double-edged sword it's such a good all-rounder that it's almost an obvious choice dare we say it's almost a bit boring the lotus has more of a sense of occasion and feels more exotic while the caiman feels more ordinary but then that's partly because it really does do so much so well it's a difficult car to pick fold with tell you what this is pretty good isn't it it is isn't it i spent a lot of time in this car already i think it's great as well but there is one thing that we're overlooking here it's the alpine a110s have you driven that before not this one no i haven't driven the s ever at all so let me jump in the driver's seat you get the passenger seat and we'll go and make a verdict after that sounds like a plan come on then all right what's this and what are we drawing it's the a110s so what does that mean so it's basically it's the alpine a110 with a bit more of everything a bit more power bit more torque a bit more grip with wider tires and a bit more downforce as well because this particular car has an aero pack and hasn't this car been around for a while though already yeah they've recently updated it i mean it's pretty subtle other than the wing on the back they've updated the infotainment that's a bit more slick but i've also slightly changed the range so there's now kind of three flavors of a110 you've got the base model yeah a whisker under 50 grams okay and there's a lot of cheaper than the others yeah although this one is more or less 60 000 pounds right a few options this car actually tops 70k so he's kind of the relevant car to having this test with amira and um i would say so in terms in terms of suspension then what's going on with the suspension they've really significantly stiffened it up over the regular a110 so the anti-roll bars are 100 stiffer wow and the springs by 50 so okay yeah it's a significant increase but then the the regular car always was very very soft so it sounds like a big increase but in some ways that's true it's such a soft car that you've seen to make a difference it's it's going to be dialed it's quite a lot but yeah yeah it's still dialed up a lot so uh so the s has been around a little bit is it the same power output in this car as well now they've revised it it's had a little bit of a bump so it's now up to 296 bhp which is a big increase also over the regular car which is around 250 or thereabouts yeah uh i mean obviously the oldest it was 288 think right yeah something like that so it's about a 20 horsepower increase as well yeah i mean you can feel it i think on the road i mean this you know it's not as rapid as the other two but it's by no means slow it definitely gets a move off yeah yeah we got this aero kit as well that you said and we got the what tires are on is it he's on grippier tires this is actually on yeah michelin cup twos which are an option on this car you pay an extra 600 pounds or so for them but yeah i don't know if you can hear it through the microphone but they're checking out a fair bit of road noise in the yes car but also a lot more grip it also sits a bit lower than the normal cars a few minutes lower too yeah female lower yeah foot four mil four mill that's going to be exactly and let's be exact yeah okay yeah the original a110 was all about being light which this car still like they're very like cars is this much heavier i think it's around 11 40 kilos right about so i mean it's nearly 300 kilograms lighter than the other two yeah even though it's down on power um by about 100 horsepower it's it's way down on weight it's 300 kilos on the way so that's going to redress that balance doesn't feel light on its feet as well i think yeah i think the interesting thing for me is is that you know the original one was all about being being quite soft and letting the car roll and kind of celebrating that almost in terms of rather than trying to clamp it down and make it grip letting it be quite fluid yeah and that's what we all liked about it so in kind of dialing it up you can only they can only really dial it up and does that take away some of the character of this car one day you know that's the that's the question that i'm i'm wondering as i get behind the wheel i think i think it's a valid one because there's a strong case to argue is do we really need an a110s because the regular car is about less is more and it's about having that really fluid ride and this one it's more anchored down yeah that's interesting although on the other hand you could argue that the extra body control extra pace it can compete in a more even footing with cars like the porsche cayman yes today they look at samira fair point yeah yeah so let's have a look at this four cylinder them so yeah angry sounding little thing plenty of 20 moments and just open my left shoulder i can hear various kind of gasps and wishes from the turbo yeah kind of hear the engine expiring a sport button here as well it seems like a good idea to give that a press all the dials have done something slightly different yeah oh we've got pipes crackles yeah yeah if you hold that button down you get race mode as well which one renault sports style means everything's switched off right okay let's do that immediately then uh okay right so second gear oh is that louder or not i don't know i really like that the sound of it i like the dct gearbox i think you know people might think it should have been a manual or whatever but i i like the kind of the promptness yeah of these shifts as well um yeah the brake feel as well and just as we're coming into this junction i think the brake feels really nice as well nice downshifts um yeah it's definitely it's in terms of the engine i think that's that's just a win-win isn't it really so just like in terms of ride obviously it's a lot stiffer isn't it i think you can feel it's yeah it's definitely more composed it's definitely more planted but there's a bit more agitation going on you mentioned the road noise before yeah um and just chugging it through some corners and and stuff as well i think you still have that kind of malleable handling balance to it which i really like and i i think it's definitely under control and it's got a lot of traction when you when you just accelerate out of a turn when you toss it in it's got i think it's still got with the cup twos as well it's got a really kind of gentle rotation and playfulness yeah and it's very consistent it kind of does the same thing every time yeah which is always a good a good thing but is it you know is it is it a case or less is more and you know with that you're losing that sort of fluidity to some of the handling gaining that composure but you've got this ride that isn't it's definitely not as polished yeah and you know what's the point of that you know so there's definitely some some pros and cons right so i've had a good driver this car now um but i'm intrigued to see what you think of it as well so i'm itching to have a go so let's swap seats compare notes and then we've got to make our verdict don't we yeah i'm a bit worried about that three very good cars okay oh this is unfamiliar for me to scare you too yes all right let's drop this down in gear let's see i think the throttle response is really impressive actually maybe even a shade more responsive than the porsche although that's pretty high benchmark to start with and i do feel like there's an instant response just off the uh the dead center on the wheel yeah it's a very responsive little car and the same on the brake field you mentioned the brakes yeah i think we're feeling that 300 kilogram short falling weights when we're hitting the brakes just that extra layer of responsiveness and for me the the low is is the best steering in terms of feel and just everything what what do you think that's the steering i think lotus is still the gold standard for for steering feel i mean one thing i would say for this car is the steering doesn't pull about much over bumps so if you if you throw this car down a bumpy road it tracks exactly true whereas in the mirror you sometimes find yourself having to tighten your grip a little bit to get the thing on a trajectory but i think that's a price worth paying for that extra feel and extra kind of granular detail of the lotus i really like the lowest in terms of how supple it was as well on the road you know it was a little bit niggly um at lower speed but um but once it gets some speed under its wheels i think it settles down and it is nice i mean one nice thing about the a110s is the torque is spread a little bit more broadly across the whole rev range yeah it is in the normal car and it is nice to have that kind of always-on feel you can always dip into the tall pressure yeah yeah i think because in a lot of ways you know we've seen porsche get it wrong with a cylinder with the 718 which is where the gts kind of comes to the rescue and people still say you know manuals are better and the thing is a great advert for having a kind of energetic four-cylinder with a dct i mean if you offered me the engine in this car or the flat 4 from the base 718 i would go for this engine every time yeah i would yeah absolutely so we thought and we thought contemplating the light lotus the precision porsche and the feisty little french car until after much prevarication we were ready to prevaricate just a little bit more so a day driving three pretty stellar cars incredible cars yeah i don't really want to put one of them in third place but we have to yeah we're looking that way and i think we're both agreed that the alpene does is our third place car it is very very good and i think the gains on the s in terms of performance especially the engine and the gearbox working together like that i found that really satisfying but maybe the chassis may be a bit more of a mixed blessing yeah i think it's made the handling much more together and definitely on a circuit i think yeah it works really well but on the road it's maybe lost some of that kind of lovely languid feel of the regular a110 yeah and although it's a bit more on par with these two it still feels like it's just in a slightly different lead yeah the ride as well as when it's sort of steady-state driving sometimes it just feels like it's not doing the job as well as the lotus yes um and that just pushes up into that price point as it's a little bit more that one with options is over 70k which is a lot of money for an a1cm isn't it so a great car but decision is final third place which gives a little great yeah which gives it more of a dilemma between these two i know yeah lotus porsche both brilliant cars so um i've been kind of yo-yoing back and forth all day i'm finding this one a really difficult one difficult one to call so yeah i was thinking maybe we count to three and we both say which one's our winner go for it so one two three definitely on the porch i think you know you've maybe been you know slightly more between the lotus and the porsche than i have i've been you know as soon as i drove it i i lent towards it straight away um but then i i sort of got absorbed in the lotus more and and and sort of tapped into its strengths and it is a brilliant brilliant car but i think for me the porsche is just almost like the kind of world champion that doesn't always finish first but he's just consistent across sometimes it's in second place but it's not far behind the rest of the time it's just hitting its marks first place yeah and it's just there's those areas that i think particularly powertrain gearbox yeah and which is the heart of the driving experience it really is as well you know and the handling too is pretty incredible yeah i mean i don't know about you but i just find this more kind of malleable more yeah kind of extrovert mid-engine slightly i don't know if it's a flat six it just feels like in the faster corners it's more playful not that it's sliding but you just feel it pivoting more in a way and you feel like you can sort of do anything with it you're not yeah it's always on your side isn't it yeah but this is brilliant i mean clearly you've had a hard time deciding with this and i love it as well so what are the standouts for you then on on the left yeah i think in the pros column i mean it really has the presence of a supercar i think it feels like a 70 000 pound exotic car yes we're in the middle of nowhere here and yet three people have come together three people have bought them they've bought one yeah yeah so shows they've they've kind of they've hit the marks with this car they've really struck on something that appeals to people it's good to see and i think driving it backs it up if i bought one of these it's a fantastic car isn't it i think it's the most exciting car of the three in terms of just just the sort of rawness and the involvement yeah the feel of the steering yeah the steering feels amazing it's definitely above the avora yeah and better than anything here love the way the chassis breeze with the road yeah but it's still a lotus yeah it's got that lovely blend something that the alpine doesn't quite do of sort of breathing but also when you turn it in it's so sort of uh hunkered down and it just zooms into the corners there's no slack just like a racing car gets in there yeah yeah yeah it's a difficult call isn't it but i mean the other things for me on on the cayman were you know the practicality side of it isn't it so usable which i know the lotus has attempted to do more than that it's it's it but it came and just has it licked slightly in every area in there isn't it interior quality yeah massive boot at the front yeah the packaging means they couldn't put a front luggage space in there yes yeah and i think seating position for me as well driving position is just a little bit lower down yeah i prefer that i prefer the interior on it and and the amazing thing is that this car is pretty old now really it's been around a long time it's been around a long time it's still doing the business and and for me it still edges it here and it's the car that i feel quite comfortable saying is the winner yeah i mean i've i've tortured myself all day about this decision but i do agree with you i think the porsche does win on points i mean let's not forget there's going to be another version of the emira on the way with a four-cylinder the four-cylinder one yeah yeah we've seen how well that can work in in the alpine with the four-cylinder and the dct so yeah yeah maybe it may be around two perhaps later in the year but today i think just on points porsche's just edged it is our winner indeed well let us know what you think as well please let us know in the comments which of these would be your winner and if you enjoyed this video please subscribe to car for more you
2022-06-12 20:54
