Driven: Quick, and going quick? The Lotus Emira 420 Sport may be the last of its kind

For a lightweight car, the Lotus Emira carries a lot of heavy expectations. Any modern Lotus will get saddled with the weighty history of Colin Chapman's legacy, but because of tariffs and restrictions on Chinese connected-car technology (Geely is Lotus's Chinese parent company), the Emira has the added responsibility of being the only Lotus currently for sale in the United States. To help the Emira haul that load, Lotus has upped the power of the Turbo SE's Mercedes-AMG-sourced 2.0-liter so that the new Emira 420 Sport now leapfrogs the V-6-powered Emira to claim the top performance spot in the lineup.

Looks are subjective, but if any modern car could safely be called a beauty, the Emira is it. We'd say it's one of, if not the prettiest car on sale at the moment. The 420 Sport adds some aerodynamic tweaks that improve downforce and cooling at the expense of the car's perfect lines, but even if the fender flares and side pods look slapped on, the Emira is still an absolute stunner.

For those who value function, the extended front splitter, opened front bumper inserts, louvered wheel-arch vents, widened side sills, bigger side intakes, and ducktail spoiler generate a claimed 55 pounds more downforce than the standard Emira and move more air through the engine and past the brakes. There are even removable panels in the brake ducts for channeling additional wind across the stoppers.

The 420 Sport makes 416 horsepower and 369 pound-feet of torque, which gives it 16 more horses than both the V-6 Emira and the U.S. version of the standard four-pot. While the inline-four Emira is still not available with a manual, the eight-speed dual-clutch automatic gets a revised tune for quicker, more predictive shifts. Lotus says the combination of more power and zippier shifting is good for a 3.7-second run to 60 mph and a quarter-mile time of 11.9 seconds. We expect it will do even better, since a four-cylinder 2024 Emira managed those feats at our test track in 3.4 and 11.7 seconds, respectively. In our untimed laps at Lotus's Hethel test circuit, the 420 scooted out of corners like it was running from the cops in a place that still criminalizes marijuana. (That's the only joke we'll make on the name. We're adults. This is a serious review.)

Let's talk about the other part of the 420's name. It wouldn't be a Lotus, and certainly not a Lotus Sport—a moniker used since the Esprit for trimmed-down versions of Lotus's road models—if the only change was on the engine dyno, so the crew out in the countryside of Norfolk, England, did more than turn up the boost and tweak the transmission. The Sport is lower, cools better, and offers the Lightweight Handling package. This setup includes sticky Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 tires, a lighter-weight lithium-ion battery, a louvered composite panel in place of the rear glass, and a titanium cat-back exhaust. Lotus's diet plan also features Multimatic two-way-adjustable spool-valve dampers so buyers no longer have to commit to choosing between the fixed Sport or Touring suspension setups. When optioned with the lightweight goodies, Lotus says the 420 Sport can knock 55 pounds off the SE's 3245-pound estimated curb weight.

Cutting weight and piling on the muscle is a common theme with a sporty trim, but it's often too small a difference to be noticeable in anything but the smallest integers of test numbers. In the Emira you can feel it, especially on the track, where the 420 snaps through the shifts and turns like it's on the catwalk at Paris Fashion Week. Step, pivot, Blue Steel. On the straights, we were knocking on the door of 140 mph before a hard stop and a dive into a quick chicane. The days of momentum-managing in a Lotus are over; this one can accelerate and turn.

And oh, how it turns! The Emira still uses hydraulic steering, and every numb, heavy-wheeled competitor ought to take note because this is what turning a car should feel like. The steering is natural. It's responsive. It has enough weight to take a set and hold it through a turn or a drift, but it brings the car back in line like a herding dog cutting sheep. On the street, it's sharp but not darty, though we can't say anything makes the rutted, twisting, narrowed arteries around Hethel less terrifying to drive.

We're pleased to also report that even though the 420 Sport is roughly 0.2 inch lower than the SE, it still doesn't require nose-lift tech. We never scraped on any of the roundabout berms or speed bumps in the area. Of all the sports cars we've driven, the Emira ranks high on the list for daily drivability. Four-cylinder fuel consumption doesn't hurt either; we don't have exact numbers for the more powerful 420 Sport, but our observed combined mileage on our previous test of the turbocharged Emira was a solid 24 mpg, and the EPA says the 420 Sport should return 18 mpg city and 26 mpg highway.

Interior quality was never a selling point for the scrappy, less polished Evora, something Lotus changed with the Emira. Here, the cabin pairs nappa leather with perforated faux suede in a subtle black-and-gray combo—or, if you're daring, an athletic orange-accented theme. New (and larger) carbon-fiber shift paddles address a complaint about their predecessors and now offer more surface area and a more satisfying click on deployment.

The louvered back panel does affect visibility, but unlike the Evora, the Emira has more stuff for you to look at inside on its larger, 10.3-inch touchscreen. It also offers phone mirroring and a seven-speaker stereo with the option to upgrade to a KEF 10-speaker system. There's no hurry to turn up the jams, though, because the AMG engine sounds great. It's raspy and snorty down low, chortling like it just heard a great joke, and at higher speeds it howls, pops, and whistles right in the driver's window.

We like the Emira so much that it's hard to be critical, but even the cutest, quickest machines have their flaws. There's not much cargo space in the Emira's hot, engine-side trunk, and while we found the rear package shelf perfect for handbags, it isn't designed to hold much more than the removable glass roof panel. On that topic, the new glass roof panel looks neat but could use a sun shade and a better seal. As an option, we'd skip it unless you want to cook just like whatever you have in the boot.

Performance-wise, the Emira 420 Sport is close to perfect, but we noticed some brake fade at the end of (an admittedly long) track day. On the street in Tour mode, the dual-clutch is slow to downshift on its own, making the car feel laggy under light acceleration.

The Emira is also expensive, starting at $125,400, which puts it close to 911 territory when its more natural competitors would be something like the M2 CS or the hole in the market that remains shaped like a Porsche 718 Cayman. Of course, the Emira is holding up the whole Lotus brand in the States right now, so perhaps we should cut it some slack. That's a big responsibility for a little car.

Lotus's future cars look to be entering the higher-end supercar segment with electric and V-8 propulsion, so if you're tempted by the Emira's small, sassy engine and old-fashioned inputs, nab one before tariffs or forbidden technology make them just another entry in Lotus's storied past.

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