Lotus's Awful GTE Program?

Another legendary British marque tried to enter the extremely competitive GTE/GT2 ranks, following Jaguar's foray. However, it's venture would not go brilliantly.

[@RosyMiranto]

But look at the bright side man, that Lotus managed to get out with the ever-smile on her face 😅

[@RichGoodbourn]

The Exige GT3 didn't last long either. It won the British GT3 class title in 2006, but was then outdeveloped pretty quickly.

[@KingofWolves3277]

bit like the Ascari in British GT

[@camryt]

There was a GT3 Exige!? Whaaaat

[@mbukukanyau]

Lack of money

[@gsherlock]

@@camryt Lotus Cadena Team, beautiful looking car. Consisted of two team cars No's 19, 20 and a third developmental car No 18

[@chrisslater9514]

engineer: "it was very successful we were only NINE seconds off the leaders :)"

[@martso9288]

James May in his police Lexus: - That's not bad.

[@enginetuna1995]

We own the 65 car! The story after this video ends is we at the @Nationalmotorsportacademy bought the 65 car and campaigned it with a student team in the GT cup series in the UK. We won quite a lot of races with it! At the end of 2019 it was retired to be preserved and is now back in it's original Jet Alliance Le Mans livery and is on display in the Central Lotus Nottingham dealership! We now run an Evora built from the spares package running a Swindon Developments supercharged 2GR !

[@turbo_marc]

How much did you buy it for?

[@enginetuna1995]

@@turbo_marc I can't disclose that I'm afraid, sorry.

[@kpegc]

Awesome effort you put together there! Thank you for bringing us race fans so much joy with these incredible machines and keeping them running. It sounds like you've been taking very good care of this one! Out of curiosity, is there any way your races can be watched online? And do you think the door's open to run the JetAlliance Evora at an event like the Goodwood Festival of Speed or Masters Endurance Series? Thank you for being so willing to communicate with us fans, too!

[@emdotrod]

At least during Proton's ownership, Lotus still tried to be active in motorsport. The same cannot be said on Lotus's time with Geely now. They're merely just a producer of electric car soon

[@racerlucas3234]

Do you know that there a new emira gt4?

[@aaronbryan5095]

After Geely bought almost half of Proton's shares, at 49.9%, all of Proton's motorsport efforts got cancelled and their motorsport division got shut down by the new management team and new CEO sent to Malaysia from Geely's HQ. Now what Proton mostly do is rebadging Geely's models, mainly a bunch of cookie cutter crossovers that drive like boats, that are also way too heavy for what they are and get absolutely horrible fuel economy, drinking nearly double the advertised fuel economy figures.

[@emdotrod]

@@racerlucas3234 Just saw it. I really hope people bought it so that Lotus can consider themselves to return to GT3

[@RichGoodbourn]

Would be the same situation as the GTE. Woefully underpowered and ill prepared

[@neblolthecarnerd]

As well as the official gt4 car there is a lotus gt2 being developed by a privateer team right now

[@adamweller4806]

A little epilogue: Also in 2012, an Evora GTE was campaigned by Scuderia Giudici in a few International GT Open races. As usual, the car wasn’t really on-pace, but it did net a top-ten finish at the Nurburgring. Johnny Mowlem was part of the driver line-up, and Giudici had a pre-existing relationship with Lotus, so some backing from Lotus was likely part of the programme. In 2015, an Evora GTE reappeared in the GT Cup UK Championship with Kevin Riley and his National Motorsport Academy team. I believe it was the former Giudici chassis. It was campaigned fairly regularly in the series for a few years, and would be developed by the team from both an aero and power standpoint. Interestingly, it was placed in Group GTC at one time, meaning it was competing against Porsche Cup cars and similar, rather than the GT3 cars and other specials in the GT Cup’s top-tier Group GTO. It was bumped up eventually, though. The car has since been retired from modern racing, in favour of a return to the colours and spec it ran at Le Mans. I don’t believe Kevin has any intention of racing it in historics. However, as far back as 2019, Riley and NMA were working on a ‘new’ Evora for the GTO class. It was built using an unfinished Evora GTE chassis, and generally dispensed with some of the restrictions imposed by GTE rules. Mr. Riley is part of the Central Lotus dealership in Nottingham, which would explain how he was able to source the chassis! I believe the car was finally raced at last year’s British GT meeting at Donington Park, in the CSCC Slicks support race. Sadly, Kevin ended up in the pit wall on the opening lap, and it doesn’t appear to have re-emerged since. Kevin’s ‘original’ car was on display at the Autosport Show back in January, in the JetAllliance colours. I do love obscure GT car afterlives!

[@nationalmotorsportacademy]

It's in the works to be re-emerging later this year! Our guys are working on it :)

[@strongxhands]

@@nationalmotorsportacademyphenomenal news gents

[@epicshibexd5049]

Babe wake up TyDye RacingGaming just dropped another banger

[@AntoniusTyas]

That 2GR-FE-derived V6 sounds ungodly. Has a hint of 991 RSR and Ford GT GTE to it. There's another story to this. Lotus should have made a road-going tribute to the Evora GTE, dubbed... Evora GTE. It was to be powered by Evora S' 2GR-FE supercharged V6 tuned to 438hp, as well as styling changes done by my least favourite tuning company, Mansory. However, you have to remember this project was overseen by the dark lord himself Dany Bahar. So you can see where this is going. Instead of building a lot of them, Lotus ran out of money and only made pre-production prototypes before cancellation. In the end they only made 20 cars, all are just rebodied Evora S (so 345hp instead of 438), many are LHD with the IPS automatic gearbox from Toyota Camry. But that's not even the end of the story, since Stratton Motor Company decided to take matters into their own hand and build another 10 cars, this time with proper 438hp version of the supercharged V6 and all use manual gearboxes. I think this is one of many things that sealed the fate of Evora. Those who expects a racing pedigree with Evora GTE racecar and roadcar was left bitterly disappointed, those who are Porsche-philes can't see how Evora is better than a Cayman (it is) and that it is just a rebodied Elise (it is not), and those who came from Elises and Exiges saw Evora as being too heavy. Doesn't help that Lotus dealers are often useless and absolutely atrocious at dealing with their customer, and that's what gave Evora its death sentences. I'm amazed Evora managed to live through from 2009 all the way to 2021. It is a genuinely good car, though, and I think in the Emira it has been given the last chance and I am glad to see people's enthusiasm and excitement for the Emira. Hope it sells really well.

[@FL_2646]

although i hate mansory, the Evora GTE actually looks very nice

[@HWK_GA]

It truly is a shame. The Evora is such a beautiful car. I've worked on several of them and a representative of one of our frequented parts companies owns a black Evora S with a Mansory GTE-style kit (with the optional high wing and diffuser and all). It's such an underrated marque. Truly one to remember.

[@e2rqey]

Fun car to drive in Assetto Corsa, I'll say that! Especially on the Nordshliefe. That being said, few cars aren't 😅

[@fqeagles21]

Try the Ferrari 296

[@huyra8019]

Emil frey punching the air

[@garbage2882]

I don't really know why, but I love these story-telling type content, like I'm interested in racing cars and can also basically listen to this like an audiobook? That's just amazing man, good work, and even though I don't like listening to a car brand I like failing, it's a pleasure to watch and listen.

[@theeeMitchi]

Glad I could help out with the footage... again. :D I love your videos. Please keep continuing this. This is the kind of knowledge that should not get lost, so I thank you for bringing it into the world. It's the kind of videos I'd gladly love to do if I had the time for it.

[@r35killa]

Great video again!! The 2010-2013 seasons of ALMS have so many odd balls its hard to count. With this Lotus, The Jag, Gallardo, Panoz, and 911 Hybrid, it was an interesting time to become a race fan (i stated watching in 2009). This was probably my favorite of the bunch that i listed. It sounded incredible (there are great onboards of this Lotus as well!) And looked so good in the black and gold scheme. That Jet Alliance blue is gorgeous too (i have a model of their DBR9) Great video as always!

[@YoSuey]

You would have liked the diversity that was Grand Am 10+ years earlier. You had GT cars clashing with Trans-am cars, clashing with 2 wildly varying prototype classes, with a handful of actual gts cars.

[@r35killa]

@BestHotboi NA I started Watching GrandAm in 2008 with one of the last few races and then learned of ALMS. The Gen 2 DPs are what got me obsessed with race cars. Sure they might not have been the best looking but they just did it for me. Went to MidOhio for GrandAm or ALMS ever year starting in 2011 until this year sadly 😥

[@SofaManager]

Love this series! I remember seeing this at Silverstone in 2011 and whilst not being fast it sounded brilliant! I miss those days of obscure GT entries with the one-off Gallardo, Z4's and surprisingly successful Panoz Esperante GT2. Keep up the great work!

[@yommish]

Despite knowing they will not succeed, I’m still disappointed by every result lol. Excellently researched and sourced, kudos. One suggestion-maybe title videos like this more ambiguously for those of us who don’t remember certain cars and programs and want a little suspense in our racing KZbin videos. Although I suppose the fact I haven’t heard of them is a clue in itself… still just a thought. Actually that leads me to something that makes the videos good in my opinion-you focus on things that did not go so well, and thus are not typically highlighted, which makes them interesting topics. Anyways thanks for the videos.

[@tohruberthon47]

Request : Review the Mazda SKYACTIV's journey in IMSA especially XD

[@robertbearden785]

It’s wild they stuck with it as long as they did before they finally switched engines

[@montikore]

Dude, this is highly underrated. The algorithm brought me here, and definitely look forward to watching more videos. 🤘

[@ZontarDow]

This program when factored in with their IndyCar engine program and what they where doing in F1 was frankly too much being done too fast by people over their heads. If two of the three hadn't been happening at the time the one that was would have in all likelihood done much better, most likely the IndyCar engine program followed by the GTE program in that order given how much of a research hog F1 is for little material results.

[@RACECAR]

If I'm not mistaken, wasn't their F1 program (Assuming you're reffering to the Enstone one and not the Tony Fernandez one, which is a mess all in itself) just them rebadging the Renault F1 team?

[@ventisette.]

@@RACECARactually both had official backing. Fernandes revived the original “Team Lotus” with support from Proton, then in 2011 they also became the title sponsor of the Enstone team while still backing the Fernandes team.

[@imajoey6594]

I feel like the cars main issue was reliability, when they did finish they didn’t do completely awful

[@LeftUnderSounds]

Love these videos. Well presented and great content. You have a great subtle sense of humour. Please do more of these car specific videos... Maybe some 90s sports cars next!

[@Atticus3lack]

I love these videos! You obviously put a lot of time and effort getting all the information and footage.

[@LoboSabio89]

As a follow up, how about something on Lotus' GT1 program?

[@martso9288]

It seems Lotuses have been cursed. Their late 90's GT1 outing was just as, if not, even worse. Even though I am a BIG fan of the Elise GT1, but you can't just say, that it's the sexiest looking turd on the '97 FIA GT1 grid.

[@S2K_F20C]

Speaking of extremely rushed development programs - maybe you could speak about the Nissan GT-R LM Nismo

[@joshuastedford1670]

Definitely my favourite kind of video of yours 💯 They may take a while to make, but totally worth it

[@DaveyZee72]

Lotus. A car company loved by all that seems to have done a lot of side steps in the last 20 years. I wanted this project to be successful. I also wondered why there wasn’t a GT3 version of this car but that video cleared up why that never happened without mentioning it You could do a video stream based entirely on Lotus’ failed exercises since 2008

[@A.F.Whitepigeon]

I'd love to see a video about the Lotus LMP program from around the same time. It's a crazy story with not a lot of info available online. It involves another Austrian team in ByKolles (though they were German-, Czech-, and Romanian-flagged in the early days), an unusually long history of poor performance and bankruptcies leading to rumors of money-laundering, a car the started as an LMP2 before being developed into an LMP1 and is somehow still running as the underpinnings of a Hypercar, and a still-fresh trademark dispute over the Vanwall name (which should sound familiar if you followed the dueling Lotus F1 efforts of the early 2010s).

[@iawhitaker]

The Jaguar xkr is still my favourite car in Forza because of how good it feels and handles. I have a Jaguar XF in real life and still plan on getting an xkr one day.

[@legoferrari14]

Now that you've done a retrospective of Lotus' failures in GTE, perhaps coverage of their similarly farcical Indycar campaign at the start of the ICONIC car era, with the project dead by the end of its first year in 2012.

[@garbage2882]

doesn't indycar use like the same car with different engines? if that's the case, then it probably failed due to management, not performance which would be a pretty boring video but I'm probably wrong

[@gamefan56]

@@garbage2882 The Lotus engine made for Indycar was horrible, like McLaren Honda 2015-2017 terrible. That is what ended their Indy program quickly.

[@garbage2882]

@@gamefan56 ah ok, I've never watched an Indycar race, there are 2 engines to choose from now right? Chevy and Honda if I remember correctly

[@gamefan56]

@@garbage2882 Correct, currently it is just Chevy and Honda. Lotus was an third option in 2013, but it was not a popular choice to say the least.

[@garbage2882]

@@gamefan56 it's kind of weird that Lotus made a bad job with their engine, I'm pretty sure they designed one of the best Corvette engines from the C4 era, but I guess making small engines for their own cars didn't help when developing a racing V6

[@davidslogoarchive5116]

I really enjoyed this video. I wanted to ask a question. Do you have interest in covering 90's GT racing? There are some very interesting and obscure entries that I thought would interest you.

[@cxhrisl]

LOTUS - Lots of trouble usually serious

[@Resettia]

I am pretty sure the Evora also competed in Super GT in the GT300 class for like, 2017 to 2020 I think.

[@K9RacingAndStuff]

True but that was as much a Lotus as the Toyota 86s in that class were Toyotas Hell, the only meaningful difference between the two cars was where the (Nissan LMP2) engine was

[@emdotrod]

Not really a Lotus, it's just a Evora bodyshell mated to a spec chassis.

[@Resettia]

@@K9RacingAndStuff Wasn't it a Mother Chassis car?

[@CharlieT_PhotoG]

3:40 - Ahh, Scary Tree! Forever in our hearts.

[@mitchellmortenson2481]

Lotus was like 0/4 in 2012. F1 backmarkers, black flagged at the Indy 500 as engine builders for being too slow, last in the LMP2 championship standings in WEC, and this.

[@Exponaut_R-01]

I remember seeing this car in a few games and, didn't know what GTE yet at the time, but sure thought it was actually supposed to be a touring car or something. Visually it doesn't look like it races on a particularly high stage, and in games it's two notches down from most other GT racers, and it has only gotten slower in comparison as the years have gone on.

[@drivingduck2234]

other ideas for awfull manufacters programs... Lada in Wtcc Citroen C3 WRC Subaru in TCR

[@RobaRacing]

Pagani Zonda at Le Mans

[@drivingduck2234]

Mini at wrc

[@ivaneurope]

The Subaru TCR effort was not made by Subaru itself, but rather from Top Run Racing - a small Italian privateer effort.

[@drivingduck2234]

@@ivaneurope without factory support?

[@ivaneurope]

@@drivingduck2234 there was zero involvement from Subaru in this project

[@tomherbert8858]

Didn't it run in an invitational class for the British GT at Silverstone a few years back? In a nice metallic green livery?

[@Robintalesfighter]

it might've been a faillure in the end, it seems to have been more competitive than the Jaguar at least

[@upthebracket26]

You did a great job presenting this, well done :)

[@Adam-ub9nu]

I absolutely LOATHE Long Beach, as I'm sure other racers do as well. As explained in the video the bottlenecking is absolutely ridiculous only because of the lack of reaction times and sometimes simply just lack of attention from other racers, it gets pretty ridiculous pretty quickly.

[@igorss8921]

One thing is fact: Lotus cars always will been beautiful (except F1 2014 omg what a shit)

[@justinwhite4995]

The Evora has always been a dream car since I the way it looks so much

[@motorsportracer97]

@@justinwhite4995 my neighbor drives one, one of the last of its breed

[@Kingofweasles]

Great video. All of Lotus's racing programs in 2011 & 2012 were pretty much a case of "Good talent involved, but no money for development" IMO, as the CEO of the time misused something like 2.5 Million pounds sterling on all kinds of extravagant things...

[@3DWorldMan]

i literally only know this car because it's assetto corsa base content but i always thought it looked quite cool

[@sherqyanstromain9580]

Another great vid

[@CLK.11]

I just got one thing to say ... I WANT MORE!

[@RACECAR]

Honestly, Lotus as a brand at that time kinda had ALOT of racing projects that sorta had the same feel about it: Projects started up so fast and not given a sufficient amount of time to mature or develop properly. You can look at the revolving door of their LMPs to see a similar story as the GTE Evora (Excluding Rebellion because they were just the main name on the car, Same goes for the F1 Team..the Enstone one, not the Tony Fernandez one just to be clear). Likewise, the indycar project was...laughable. While the GTE program had some sort of progress, Indy in comparison just wasn't going nowhere (At least even less quickly then the GTE Program was)

[@EmyrDerfel]

Ah, Johnny Mowlem who while commentating the 2023 Le Mans 24h as part of the RadioShowLimited/RadioLeMans team, exceeded the limits of balance of his office chair and fell back. Paul Truswell, speaking at the time, maintained professionalism and finished his sentence. The moment was captured for posterity as the commentary booth was being streamed to KZbin for RLM's StudioVision stream.

[@DaisyTheSadboi]

The king returns

[@JozefLucifugeKorzeniowski]

good thing British Leyland didn't have a motorsports program. can you fucking imagine?

[@ivaneurope]

Perhaps you can do a hat-trick of failed GT projects of British-based brands by looking at Bentley's failed GT3 program?

[@Calibra95]

Didn't know this program was that difficult. Just sern a Evora for the first time 2 days ago

[@YoSuey]

Well it is powered by a Toyota, so longevity was never an issue. It just wasn't fast enough. Could have been an absolute monster in the tin tops.

[@scatterplot77]

have you done a video on Lotus' awful Indycar program?

[@utvpoop]

Lada 2110/Priora Awful(?) WTCC program

[@romiarkan450]

The Lotus would've gotten a lot of staying power if they managed to meme their way into popularity like Bentley did

[@titusslaughter6247]

Rsr evolution video coming soon??? 😁😁

[@Wergiftfresch]

I saw - and HEARD - the lotus in ALMS at VIR - I quite liked it.

[@seivaDsugnA]

Evora's suck! Less so than most cars however, and are generally happier. I'd still take the Elise for public roads though, since I don't have an Evora.

[@patrickracer43]

Could be worse, could be the Lotus Indycar engine program

[@gamefan56]

Video suggestion: Aston Martin’s awful DTM program which lasted just one season in 2019.

[@Puntatacosimuladores]

How bout the lotus Elise GT1?

[@jctheU.G.SafariBigGamecat]

It's a shame because the more GT3 cars rhe better racing we have.

[@mbukukanyau]

Their first mistake was that Toyota V6. Those things are trash.

[@J1TonTon]

Discord dropping when? o.o

[@ameEeeee3]

Do a street track failure: kl city gp in my area, hosted in 2015 (only hosted for 1 year)

[@julianbailey2749]

Next, what about a look at Lotus' GT1 program?

[@triggeredemoji298]

No way, he knows who Casper is!

[@34Racingteam]

Car didn't look good 😂....when I was a kid I felt it looked like a catfish especially before the body style update 😅

[@Ligier_JS-P217]

Lotus had a GTE?

[@viperford6840]

Lotus needs to learn that handling isn't everything, ur gonna need some stright line speed

[@jfogerty77]

I don't think you know what a scandinavian flick in.

[@Leminko11]

Jan K is my old friend

[@motorsportsfanforlife5599]

Could you make a discord server?

[@MarkWazowski]

try to google Evora GT300

[@scottl.1568]

Whut