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Lotus hands Pastor Maldonado a new Evora S in Monaco

Being a Formula One driver has its privileges. First off, you get to drive F1 cars for a living. You get treated like royalty and fly around the world. And if you're lucky, you might get a supercar thrown at you once in a while. It all depends on which team you drive for.
Fernando Alonso, for example, has had countless Ferraris, Maseratis, Abarths and Jeeps thrown his way. Lewis Hamilton was a little disappointed not to get the keys to that rare McLaren F1 LM when he won the championship. But Pastor Maldonado just got his hands on a new Lotus Evora S.
Pastor who now, you ask? Pastor Maldonado. The first Venezuelan driver in F1, Maldonado won the GP2 title in 2010 then made the jump to F1, driving for Williams for the past three seasons, impressively winning the Spanish Grand Prix in 2012. Now he's at Lotus filling Kimi Raikkonen's seat, and took delivery of his white Evora - complete with 3.5-liter supercharged V6 and six-speed sequential gearbox - in Monte Carlo last weekend during the Monaco Grand Prix.

Lotus Type 133 / Envya spy photos show it in thin camouflage

Lotus's upcoming electric sedan, codenamed Type 133 and potentially named Envya, has been caught in spy photos once again, and this time we get an impressively clear look thanks to thin, branded camouflage. It looks as long and slinky as ever, and design elements from the Lotus Eletre electric SUV are obvious. It also looks as though it's closely related to the Polestar 5 sedan. The nose of the Type 133 is a near note-for-note remake of the Eletre's, but significantly lower and flatter. Frankly, it's a much better execution of the design to these eyes. It has the split headlights and the hexagonal active grille shutters like the SUV, too. Close examination also shows that the upper headlights consist of two scowling lenses on each side, with the upper ones obscured by vinyl camoflage. The low nose rises quickly over a short hood into the long, raked roofline that continues right through to the tail. The Type 133 is absolutely a modern fastback-type sedan, and likely features a hatchback. At the leading edge of the roof, there's a sensor that's presumably for advanced driver aids, and is one of the signs that this car likely is closely related to the Polestar 5, which was previewed with a similar sensor. Around at the back, the Type 133's details are harder to see due to the final taillights not being installed. But it does appear to be getting full-width units, and there are some diffuser-like details in the rear bumper. Besides that aforementioned sensor, the whole car's shape, size and proportions look extremely close to the Polestar 5's and those of the Precept concept that previewed the Polestar. The low nose, long roof, roof sensor, flush door handles, they're all very similar. And with Geely owning both brands, it's not really a surprise. The same electric platform from the Eletre is likely powering the Type 133, and power could range from 595 to 893 horsepower. Battery packs could range from 92- to 120-kWh. With how finished and thinly disguised this prototype is, we think the Type 133 could be revealed sometime this year, possibly going on sale next year.  Related Video:

What has Lotus got in store for us in Geneva?

In its latest announcement, Lotus has reported a substantial increase in sales over the past nine months of this fiscal year to date. That's good news for the once troubled niche automaker, but the interesting part was hidden further down the release. After detailing the jump in sales by 54 percent worldwide, Lotus announced that it "is revealing an exciting new car at the important Geneva International Motor Show in early March 2015." While little in the way of details were confirmed, the company said that "the product will remain true to its core pillars of lightness, performance and driving purity by embodying all of them in a most desirable package." Sounds pretty Lotus-like to us, but just what form it will take remains to be seen. Given that the Malaysian-owned British automaker has scrapped all of its ambitious new projects, the overwhelming likelihood is that whatever it is preparing to reveal in Geneva will be based on one of its existing models: the Elise, Exige or Evora. The last we heard, Hethel was planning a revision to the Evora, convertible and even crossover versions of the same, as well as an even more hard-core version of the Exige to take the place of the extreme 2-Eleven track car. The announcement refers to the Elise S Cup that was the company's most recent reveal, but seems to indicate that the Geneva show car will be something different. 19 January 2015 Lotus sales up 54% world-wide for the first nine months of the financial year · 81% sales increase EU overall · 88% increase in UK · 143% increase in France · 139% increase in Germany · 29% up USA; 50% up Canada · 24% up Asia and Middle East · 130% sales increases in China; 125% in Japan · Lotus Motorsport shows 19% increase · 163 dealers, 25 more than nine months ago, 50 more in pipeline by the end of 2015. · Exciting reveal in Geneva Announcing that overall sales are up by 54% in the past nine months provides tangible proof that the forward strategy established by Lotus Cars is working. In volume terms, the increase of 551 cars over the previous year, to a total of 1,565, is an excellent result for the British sports car maker. Lotus has enlarged and strengthened its representation globally, with 25 new dealers enrolled across a number of territories in the past nine months, with another 50 new dealers joining Lotus by the end of 2015.