Thursday, May 28, 2009

Who is the winner - Lotus Evora, Porsche Cayman or Artega GT?

There's quite a bit of competition in the market for smaller and lightweight mid engined 6 cylinder sports cars. The Porsche Cayman has been here for quite some time, but was just recently refreshed with PDK, direct injection and more power. The Artega GT was announced last year and should be in production by now. And the Lotus Evora with its four seats (!) is brand new. They all look good and they all probably do the job of bringing the driver and co-driver from A to B. There are some interesting differences between the cars. The Artega GT for example weighs only 1116 kg, some 200 kg less than the Lotus or the Porsche. The Lotus is the only of the three with four seats. And Porscheis the only one with its bespoke engine while the other two take their heart from either Toyota (Lotus) or Volkwagen (Artega). But there are similarities also. The Porsche nips 9.4 l per 100 km (in S and PDF disguise), the Lotus 8.7 l, the Artega 8.9/9.1 l. Performance is also comparable with 5.1 s from 0 to 100 km/h for the Lotus and the Porsche, 4.8 for the Artega GT. So, all in all, these three cars should attract similar audiences and their owners shouldn't need to feel to bad about destroying the environment. BUT, will they (all) be a success? I doubt it. They all are quite expensive, 3 to 4 times a VW Golf (subject to specs). And they have born into the midst of a worldwide financial crisis. So it's going to be tough! Let's see. They certainly add some colors to the traffic on our roads and I am looking forward driving the one or the other of this breed.

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