1971 Lotus 11 Westfield Ultra Rare Super Exiciting on 2040-cars

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Lotus Evija whirs onto Quail lawn to tempt 130 prospective customers

At last, we've met the Lotus Evija in its compact, electric-charged glory. The carbon-fiber-bodied electric supercar looks like liquid metal poured over some skeletal biologic form. The coupe represents the first all-new Lotus since the ten-year-old Evora went on sale, the first Lotus developed wholly under Geely ownership, the first in-house all-electric vehicle from Hethel, the first Lotus with a one-piece carbon fiber monocoque tub, and the first one Hethel HQ will send to the Nurburgring to break a lap record. Lotus announced that lap record tilt saying it should be "comfortably quicker" than the all-electric NIO EP9 road-legal EV that ran a 6:45. That has since been broken by the 6:05 figure Volkswagen achieved with its ID.R, a purpose-built electric race car. The 'Ring doesn't yet divide EV times into classes, so we'd still like to see Lotus go for outright honors. That is indeed unfair, but the Evija has the numbers to at least make a go of it. The four electric motors in the ID.R produce a combined 680 horsepower and 479 pound-feet of torque to move a car weighing 2,500 pounds. The Evija's 50 percent heavier at 3,700 pounds, but has almost triple the horses and more than double the torque, its two motors making a combined 2,000 horsepower and 1,254 pound-feet of torque. It does have active aerodynamics, including a moving rear wing, but it's still short a bunch of race aero, a giant front splitter, and a DRS button. No matter how the German caper turns out, we expect Lotus will be able to find homes for all the Evijas it offers for sale. Only 130 will be made, each one starting at around $2.1 million.

Race Recap: 2014 Spanish Grand Prix is boom and bust [spoilers]

The Spanish Grand Prix's 2.892-mile Circuit de Catalunya is considered a preview for the rest of the season, since it's a combination of long front straight and twisting middle sectors mimic sections from every other Formula One track to follow. After the long break following the flyaway races to open the season, teams and fans have also been looking forward to this race to see if anyone had a realistic hope of catching Mercedes AMG Petronas; Infiniti Red Bull Racing honcho Christian Horner boiled his team's outlook for the season down to the line, "We've got to [beat them in Spain] if we're going to make a championship of it."
If we take that as our starting point then the weekend began as a bust. Lewis Hamilton only just beat Mercedes teammate Nico Rosberg for pole, the Brit's final effort getting him 0.178 seconds clear of the German. Daniel Ricciardo, proving Red Bull is at least the best of the rest, took third but did so more than a second behind Hamilton. Valtteri Bottas of Williams lined up fourth, almost 1.5 second behind and Romain Grosjean delivered overdue good news for Lotus by taking fifth on the grid, more than 1.7 seconds behind pole. Kimi Räikkönen in sixth outqualified his Ferrari teammate Fernando Alonso in seventh, but he couldn't be happy about it because the Ferraris were nearly two seconds behind, and Jenson Button in eighth in the McLaren was more than two second behind. Felipe Massa put the second Williams in ninth, and Sebastian Vettel overcame a terrible start to the weekend to make it into Q3, then didn't set a time when his gearbox failed, then got dropped five places to 15th on the grid when the gearbox had to be changed.
When the lights went out, then came the boom...

A Lotus Super Seven shows what simple beauty means

Roadgoing sports cars don't get much more pure than the Lotus Seven. With no roof or luxuries of any kind, this is quite possibly the car that exemplifies better than any other Lotus founder Colin Chapman's ethos of "simplify, then add lightness." Geoff Wise owns a 1963 Lotus Super Seven, and he shows why the car's uncluttered layout works so well, as you'll see in Petrolicious' latest video. Petrolicious often profiles people who take a classic car and upgrade it into a vintage racer one piece at a time. Wise did the exact opposite, though. He bought his Seven as a track car and converted it to work better on the road. For example, the engine now runs on pump gas, but it still has plenty of power. The bored and stroked 1.7-liter four-cylinder has a claimed 120 horsepower, which is more than adequate in the 1,000-pound Lotus. Wise says the Seven gets tons of attention when he goes for a drive, especially from kids. It's easy to understand why. In a world of crossovers and active safety systems, seeing a car that's so basic is transfixing. Enjoy watching the little Lotus on the road in the latest clip from Petrolicious. If you don't have the space for one in the garage, there's at least the option of the upcoming Lego kit for your bookshelf. Related Video: