Lotus has slapped a sticker price on the new Emira

Lotus has slapped an official price sticker on its new Emira sports car, and it’s a pretty attractive one. While the mid-engined coupe launches initially as a £75,995 First Edition, a £59,995 ‘entry-level’ Emira will follow in 2023.

If that sounds like far too long to wait, then the First Edition crams in quite a lot of the stuff you might add to that base car anyway. It first launches as a V6-powered manual, for starters, to keep us grumpy rose-tinted folk nice and content.

You’ll also get 20in diamond-cut alloys and LED lights all round, while First Edition spec adds three of the Emira’s four options packs.

The Drivers Pack beefs up the suspension and tyres, the Design Pack brings painted brake calipers and privacy glass (we’d happily live without both, to be honest) while the Convenience Pack brings rain-sensing wipers, a storage net and parking sensors all round alongside a reversing camera.

The latter may not sound very ‘simplified’ or ‘light’, but we’d wager it’s pretty flipping handy glancing at the Emira’s rearward view using eyes alone. What’s definitely a bit less ‘Lotus’ than what’s gone before are heated, 12-way adjustable seats, climate and cruise control, keyless go and full smartphone connectivity.

Mind, it’s all the stuff you probably want when you’re spending well into the 70s on a sports car. An automatic gearbox is an £1,800 option while a four-cylinder turbo First Edition will follow a few months after the V6.

The launch editions are commonplace in the car industry now – sending a bunch of cars down the line with identical specs helps get production niggles ironed out early doors – but unusually Lotus is offering the Emira’s with several colour choices. Red, yellow, green and grey are all on offer, as well as the colour you see here – Seneca Blue. Spoiled for choice? Go have a play on the configurator and squander the rest of your working day speccing one…