2020 Lotus Evora GT - Jay Leno's Garage

[Music] of course you got race mode and sport mode you got all that stuff but the more you drive it the more you like it take my word welcome to the episode of jay leno's garage pandemic edition uh remember we were doing pandemic editions for a while and then they lifted it we could bring our crew in well now we're back to the strict restrictions again so i'm back to doing these alone i'm sorry that we don't have our camera crew and our sound guy but i i thought it was more important to make sure that we had new product every week all right so here we go this is the new lotus avora gt you know the name lotus it's one of those legendary names and it's a small company it depends why you want a car like this you know i i had a friend of mine say to me hey what's the best sports car to get girls you want to get girls i don't know you know the last girl i got was 40 years ago and i was driving a 55 buick so i'd have to say 55 buicks are the best cars to get girls because i got the one i wanted my 55 buick and that's not what this car is for although i'm sure it'll work fine for that or if you're the type of guy that wants something fancy to pull up in front of a club or a restaurant this will work well too but that's not the main focus this is a driver's car that is the primary reason for having this car are there cars with more horsepower yes are there cars that will handle better i i don't think so i mean this is the most satisfying automobile to drive 416 horsepower i know everybody else is in this five six seven horsepower club but they're not as light as this this is a shade under 3 200 pounds uh 3.5 liter v6 supercharged i think it's what 317 foot-pounds of torque one of the best shifting cars i have ever driven i love shifting this i love driving this this is well a driver's car i remember back in the in the early days of racing when hudson came out i was thinking about this guy driving my hudson the other day hudson used to say you might catch me on the straights but i'll beat you in the corners because i had that step-down design and that's kind of a good theory here although this is plenty fast i mean it is a quick car it's zero to 60 with 3.8 something like that that's right up there in supercar territory this car sells for shade under 100 grand and you get exclusivity supercar performance and it's old school you know when you look at the dashboard you want to turn the heat on go to h or go to c hot cold simple i don't have a look at the screen are you happy with selection yes how happy are you very happy yeah and then i've hit a tree because i'm watching this you reach down and just press a couple of buttons and you get whatever you want i mean that's that's what i like about it this is about an analog car as you'll find in the modern era when you have to have certain things anti-lock brakes and traction control and all that kind of stuff the engine is sourced from a toyota now some people might say oh it's got a toyota engine no they take the engine from toyota and they sort of let's say lotus size it okay if there's such a word it's supercharged it's not turbocharged so there's no lag you've got all kinds of horsepower and quite frankly you get that reliability of a toyota v6 engine in an exotic car because let's face it a lot of exotic cars are not as reliable as something like this uh i'm very impressed with this automobile it is very cool uh aluminum chassis a lot of carbon fiber as you can see a buddy of mine was six foot eight got in this the other day and thought it was just unbelievable because he fit don't forget your engine is in the back so your seat come all the way back and your feet go all the way forward so you can be a really big guy you can be an nba player and drive this car it looks like a small car it is reasonably small but it's not tiny and there's all kinds it utilizes space excellent and the interesting thing is it's a two plus two it actually has a back seat okay it's a laughable back seat and you might get one guy in there sideways but it is a back seat and the cool thing is it has a trunk but it also has this back seat area you can put a ton of stuff back there so this is a practical car and it's a car you don't see on the road every day uh not that you see lamborghinis every day but when you live in l.a you do you see oregon's all over the place and they're they're excellent but they're three times the price of this car and that's the interesting thing about this you get that supercar exclusivity and i know a hundred thousand dollars is not cheap i'm not saying that but i'm saying is a car like this for that price and it puts you in that sort of rarified air of of unique and original sports cars it's a lotus i mean the name has all kinds of connotations you know i've got a lot of salon which this to this day i think is one of the greatest handling cars of all time because handling is what lotus does it's what they do if you took this up through the hills you would be amazed look if you're just a guy that's just looking at something to impress people there probably are cars that would be more impressive but none would make you feel as good or as handled as well i just thought this thing was was pretty amazing but i mentioned the engine let me show you the engine let me move the tripod around and put the camera so we can see that motor okay here we are at the rear of the vehicle i love the center exhaust it looks like a giant usb port that's kind of cool again i always talk about this i love round tail lights there's nothing as good liking as round tail lights the early lotus cortinas had them i'd like you to continue it to this day let me open the back here as you see you've got your big supercharger on top here and it's cool on the rear view mirror you can sort of see the whole linkage and everything working when you put your foot in it ah this is one of the best best-sounding v6s you know i i said before it's a toyota v6 okay an engine that's used in every uber car every lift car it's an engine that goes hundreds and hundreds of thousands of miles i put 500 hard miles on this thing and didn't use a drop of oil i mean you get that total reliability it's sort of been reimagined by lotus let's say with the supercharger i'm so glad it's not a turbo i just like that they're old school because supercharging you have the horsepower all the time there's no lag the minute you put your foot in it boom you feel a pull away and it sounds great i mean i think you'll be impressed when you hear it uh and of course you can modulate the exhaust too from the dashboard uh you've got a fairly good sized trunk area here if you're a golfer you can get a set of clubs in here but as i said you've got all kinds of room in the back seat um all right let's look put that down see i just like that they go lightweight like this okay i mean you can put a couple of big heavy gas struts in here and that's going to add a few pounds i just like the fact that they do it old school since i'm on this side anyway let me let me show you the passenger side come around here you know you have all the options electrically heated mirrors and they fold in and all that kind of stuff when you lock it up uh i mean doors open nice and wide very spacious compartment there passenger seat nice materials leather let me show you the wheels here these are kind of interesting you know that's what i call boutique engineering where companies like lotus go around i find that people make the best parts these are ap racing brakes okay they're server-assisted they're cross-drilled they're vented the four calipers these are 370 millimeters in the back about 350 in the front these wheels designed by lotus ultra lightweight forged wheels 19s in the front 20s in the rear and you got these michelin pilot sport cup 2 xl's here let's move to the front of the car another thing i like about this car they're all functional there's nothing on here that's phony and all the cars they have all sorts of scoops and things that don't do anything you know just visual but everything here is here for a purpose this is all to get air through the radiator brakes whatever and uh i i think they add to the look of the car as you see a lot of carbon fiber although you can get it without it but that's sort of an option in the package i think enhances the car quite a bit you know i haven't filmed the startup for a while i'm going to go around get in the car and set up the camera so you can see the exhaust and hear it when it starts and it sounds really good you'll see hmm okay before we pull out the driveway i remember i said before how you could be six to eight and drive this thing i'm gonna put the seat all the way back i want to show you look at this look how far back i am i cannot reach i cannot put the clutch pedal in that's how look how much room i've never seen a car like this an exotic sports car that had this kind of leg room so that's pretty cool all right push it back up again across tiny people let's take it for a ride [Applause] [Music] any guys you got race mode and sport mode she got all that stuff which i don't really care about the electric seats or any of that but the more you drive it the more you like it take my word for it you know this is a very competitive segment of the market and to be competitive you got to be the best at something some have the most most horsepower you know this one it's quite amazing how well it handles and i love this shifter i love this transmission very snick snick clicks right in six speed and it makes a nice sound it's not so obnoxious that you're gonna get tired of it droning on while you drive not that way at all very nice one of my favorite things about lotus is it's a small company and it's the most committed group of people you've ever met in your life we had the head designer and some of the other people here at the shop and that's what's fun you know it's not some big monolithic company which has tens of thousands of workers you know everybody knows your car you use your side mirrors a lot more the use your uh rear view mirror between the slats and the small window i mean you can see behind just but it's better to use your side mirrors which are actually excellent which is actually all you need i can't say i ever use the rear view much in this i just use the side mirrors [Music] and of course you got back up camera and all that stuff now that's mandatory it's very hard to build a light car these days because there's so many safety features and things that you have to have [Applause] nowhere on the motor doesn't say toyota i don't believe it does it says lotus because as i said it's sort of reimagined by lotus but you get that unbeatable sort of reliability you get a proven you know it's funny i've got a i've got a ford gt and it's got the ford sync system in it you know when you're getting your and anytime i get in a european car and i hook up my phone and like sometimes it hooks up it doesn't you're getting because the ford sync systems and everything from escorts to fiestas the fusions and the ford gt immediately get in boom everything works perfectly am fm auxiliary you know bluetooth all that stuff because it's it's a proven device and that's what i love about this engine it's a proven entity you know it's not going to break it's not going to wear out these go hundreds of thousands of miles i told you we put 500 miles on this thing checked the oil and really checked it i mean not an ounce of oil you know the old days he's gonna have to add a quart every six seven hundred miles just by the nature of beating up the car and driving it hard and seeing occasional puff of blue smoke i mean those days are all gone you know so what you do with this thing is you just drive it and use it for its intended purpose i love the fact that there's only a few gauges on the steering wheel it's not a myriad of buttons where i'm just going crazy trying to figure out what's what very simple i like the wheel top speed in this car is about 188 miles an hour which is fine you know i mean let me tell you you're going 188 in the street you're going to jail i'm sorry as i always say and i probably say it on more of these videos all than i need to all the fun is between 40 and 120. [Music] and i was genuinely amazed at the gas mileage driving it hard i don't think it ever went below 17. i mean maybe it did but it was not kind of thing going what i'm out of gas already you know yeah i've got that hemi challenger and when you get out of the gas cage and the minute hand and the clock move at the same rate it says like hey hey this is a real livable sports car you know i always meet ferrari guys that brag about how few miles they have on it yeah it's a 91 i got 800 miles yeah great good for you you know this you could put 100 000 miles on this thing and not even flinch [Music] it's just seamless i know i know you can get this with an automatic but that seems like such a waste [Music] i love that long pole in third gear you know it gives me great joy to drive a car like this where i know everything is good on it doesn't break because i don't like to trash cars i know i watch a lot of websites people like to break stuff and make fun of it i know how much work how much engineering how much dedication goes into making something like this so i don't like to do something unless i know it's going to be good and i had driven one of these and that's why i asked to road test this because i know it's good i'd like to see it do well because it's an excellent product and you know v6s are the coming thing the 4g keys of v6 the new mclaren that they're coming out that's going to be a v6 engine uh lighter and uh you know they're getting more and more power from them and of course the first production car with the v6 what's the answer that's the lancia aurelia or the victorio yano made the first production v6 back in 1950 i think it was and it's come a long way i just like what this doesn't have like i can reach down and i can make it hotter and colder without looking at the screen i like that i like that i can do all those kind of things modern cars have become so distracting with the big center screen and you have to look at it or take your eyes off the road when you drive in a car like this you never want to take your eyes off the road well i hope you got the idea of what i'm talking about i don't mean to go on and on i just like the company i like what they do i like the emphasis on handling and driving so check one of these out if you see one on the road give the guy a thumbs up but you probably won't see that many because they're rare so get them while they're huh see you guys [Music] later [Music] uh

Channel: Jay Leno's Garage

Views: 400,710

Rating: 4.9670606 out of 5

Keywords: Jay, Lenos, Garage, Lotus, UK, British cars, Toyota, supercharger, supercharged, V6, Colin Chapman, car porn, sports car, supercar, motonerd, gearhead, car guy, road test, mid engine, Camry, car reviews, 2020 Lotus Evora GT, lotus evora, jay lenos garage, jay leno, compares cars, vintage cars, classic cars, jay leno garage, car collection, evora gt, new lotus evora, 2020 lotus, 2020 evora gt, lotus evora gt review, car reviews 2020, lotus evora review, lotus evora sound

Id: gmS__G9ig64

Length: 17min 15sec (1035 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 08 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/OyManu]

Probably one of the greatest sports cars of recent times and it's totally dailyable . It's a shame it's being taken out of production and I'm going to miss these cars but also looking forward to the type 131. The Evora (like the Elise and Exige) is one of those great cars people say they want but don't buy new. People won't realise what they've lost, till it's too late and then wonder why more weren't made.

[u/YouAreMentalM8]

Seriously. This is probably one of the best sports cars of the decade. If you love driving, do yourself a favour and try one. It's unbelievably good.

[u/DoblerRadar]

I’m finally in a place where I could justify buying one of these, but I’m holding out for the 131. Got a good feeling about that one.

[u/One_Shekel]

One day...