Lotus Europa News

The GT inspired two-seater is aimed at providing Lotus customers with a spectacular sports car featuring higher levels of practicality and refinement compared with the sport-oriented Lotus Elise and Exige models. The new model has a larger boot and luggage compartment as well as a higher roofline and lower sills for easier access.Despite extra size and features the Europa S maintains Lotus's reputation for light weight, tipping the scales at just 995kg. The low kerb weight combines with a torquey 149kW, 263Nm 2.0-litre turbocharged four-cylinder engine to give the Europa S a supercar-like power-to-weight ratio of 156kW/ tonne. The Europa sprints from 0-100km/h in just 5.5 seconds. Maximum speed is approximately 225 km/h (140 mph).Lotus has again employed advanced materials including its highly rigid extruded and bonded aluminium chassis, composite body panels and an advanced composite energy absorbing front crash structure.

Alfa Romeo stepped up straight after the Peugeot unveiling of a woman, I mean a car. A 207 apparently.

The GT inspired two-seater is aimed at providing Lotus customers with a spectacular sports car featuring higher levels of practicality and refinement compared with the sport-oriented Lotus Elise and Exige models. The new model has a larger boot and luggage compartment as well as a higher roofline and lower sills for easier access.Despite extra size and features the Europa S maintains Lotus's reputation for light weight, tipping the scales at just 995kg. The low kerb weight combines with a torquey 149kW, 263Nm 2.0-litre turbocharged four-cylinder engine to give the Europa S a supercar-like power-to-weight ratio of 156kW/ tonne. The Europa sprints from 0-100km/h in just 5.5 seconds. Maximum speed is approximately 225 km/h (140 mph).Lotus has again employed advanced materials including its highly rigid extruded and bonded aluminium chassis, composite body panels and an advanced composite energy absorbing front crash structure.

It is, in its way, the best show for ages, with a quotient of concept vehicles and exotica balanced by real world stuff you'd actually consider buying.Highlights?It's hard to walk past Audi's R8, a fully-fledged supercar likely to come in with a "bargain" tag of substantially less than $300,000. Next to it is the second generation Audi TT, mightily improved and not screamingly unaffordable from $68,500 the entry model and about $20K more for its 3.2 V6 quattro sibling. We drove both of these through the Austrian Alps in June 2006, and will hazard the guess that Audi will struggle to meet demand for this superbly executed coupe.And, just for show, is a model of the R10 – the amazing V12 diesel that took first and third at this year's Le Mans.The great thing about concept cars is that they needn't conform to such tiresome criteria as Australian Design Rules - hence the lack of an A pillar on Saab's Aero Concept X. The lack of any pillars for that matter. Slightly more tangible is the 9-5 bio ethanol-powered wagon - a car to gladden the hearts of sugar cane growers.Lotus has revived an iconic brand name with the Europa S, a car that should affirm two-seater motoring can still be an unadulterated and largely unconstrained experience. When the product of mainstream manufacturers seems to keep getting fatter, like a choc-addicted neurotic, the mere existence of Lotus serves to remind us of (hard) core driving verities.Mazda's Kabura sports compact - with its cute 3+1 seating arrangement - is a concept from which the theme and shape of Mazdas to come can be divined. Ditto Honda's Sports 4 Concept for that marque. Or so we hope. While Honda's SH-AWD system is damn clever, it'd be neat to see it attached to something a little more athletic than the globulous Legend.A few metres away from the Kabura is the CX-7 - the crossover SUV with much of the Mazda 6 MPS's drivetrain - which you'll be seeing on our streets soon. It's one of two vehicles that perfectly defines what marketing types like to call the "zeitgeist" of the Australian buyer at the moment.The other, you may or may not choose to believe, is a Volvo. The S80 all-wheel-drive V8 luxury sedan might be the Swedish marque's new hero model, but their decidedly groovy 2+2, the C30, could be the car that finally puts paid to those ancient "bloody Volvo driver" cliches.It also points firmly in the direction that Australian private buyers are going ie: those of us not enamoured of soft road SUVs are downsizing but up-speccing.And speaking of good things in small packages, those who have queued long for the Volkswagen Golf GTI will be delighted to see that not only is demand being addressed, but the new to Australia three door-model starts $1500 under the five door at $38,490. VeeWee's highly desirable Eos CC, the big drawer at last year's Frankfurt motor show, finally made its Australian debut ahead of its release early in 2007.And yes, that's a turbo diesel variant you see parked near the turbo petrol. If diesel seems anomalous in a (part-time) open top car, it works.Given the mudslide of Holden hype this year, it comes almost as relief not to see some lurid concept jobbie from them for once, although unveiling the Hummer H3 did at least provide comic relief.With the pomp and circumstance we've come to expect from Holden on the opening day of the show, the covers were hauled off to anything but the reception they've come to expect.Far from the rapturous and somewhat sycophantic applause that greeted their Torana and Efijy creations, there was … well, the sound of no hands clapping. In fact, the silence that greeted this spectacularly pointless and ugly apparition could best be described as stoney.Nissan's Foria is a concept car we’d very much like to see come into fruition. Apart form the corporate grille, this is an elegant Lancia-like coupe intended as an MX-5-like alternative.