Lotus Emira Lands Stateside With An F1 Legend In Tow

Lotus has a new sports car called the Emira that follows the Lotus tradition of lightweight and impressive handling with a small engine. The vehicle arrived in the US to make its official US debut at The Quail today with F1 legend Jenson button in tow. Button and the Emira went to Laguna Seca Raceway for some hot laps, with Button stating that it was a great circuit that most road cars didn't work well on.

However, he says the Emira does very well on the racetrack. The new Lotus is a mid-engine sports car featuring a 2.0-liter turbocharged in-line four-cylinder engine from technical partner AMG as the base power plant. It is available with the more powerful 3.5-liter supercharged V6 used in the Evora GT.

Those engines produce between 360 and 400 horsepower. Buyers can choose a manual transmission or a dual-clutch transmission. Lotus says all versions of the Emira can reach 62 mph in less than 4.5 seconds. The automaker sees the US as a key market for the Emira, which is exclusively powered by gasoline engines.

Luckily for us, Lotus did record Button's hot lap of Laguna Seca behind the wheel of the Emira. That lap can be seen below. The small sports car is certainly good-looking and looks like it will be a lot of fun on the track or the road.

Louis's new Emira isn't the only vehicle it will be showing off over the weekend. The car is also joined by the Evija hypercar and the slick Radford 62-2. The latter car is a modern reinterpretation of an iconic Lotus racing car from the 60s, and it's beautiful.