Lotus Emira V6 vs Porsche 718 Boxster GTS - The Lotus has a big problem !

hey guys and welcome to petrop ped and welcome to the much requested comparison between this my Porsche Boxer 718 GTS and this my new Hy group long termer the simply magnificent lotus in mirror V6 [Music] manual now before we start the video I know in this format they are very different cars but hear me out the boxer shares a huge amount with the Cayman and I think the Cayman is a direct competitor to the Amira and you never know in the future maybe Lotus would chop the roof off the Amira like they did with the exes that'd be cool Wouldn't It Anyway first up I think we need to talk styling now I might be a little bit bias here because this is my car but I think roof up or roof down the boxer is a beautiful looking car Cayman as well so there's no doubt that this is a a beautiful sports car it gets lots of compliments and I think it's quite subtle in its design however in my humble opinion the Amira takes styling to another level the way I describe it is the boxer and Cayman have sports car looks the Amira has super car looks this thing is Drop Dead gorgeous now I'm sure for some of you the paint choice of this car he yellow is a bit Marmite you either love it or hate it I just think it makes a mega statement if I were to buy one of these though I would buy the dark green I think it's called verdant green metallic but either way when you walk up to this car you know you're going to get in something special and honestly I get lots of press cars I get to drive lots of nice cars the attention this car has had since I've had it whether that's people asking to take photograph when are filling it up at the fuel station or when you're driving along a dual carriageway and you've got little kids holding smartphones out the window asking you to slow down and drive past so they can get a picture it's a beautiful beautiful car from any angle I'm not going to do so much at which one wins but I think styling wise the Amira is right up there and holds its own against some of the very best supercars in the world okay let's talk powertrain and performance now both of these cars have a very similar recipe but just slightly different ingredients let's talk about my car first so this is the GTS in here we have a mid-mounted 2 and 1/2 L flat 4 Turbo with 360 horsepower all going through a 7-speed pdk semi-automatic box and rear wheeel drive and I know some of you are going to be going it's not a proper boxer unless it's got six cylinders I'm going to talk about that when we get out driving if I may and then the other thing is approximate curb weight of this car cuz you know what my history is like with weights we're talking around about 1,450 kilos the Amira again mid engined but this is the 3 and 1/2 L v6 supercharged imira and this has the six-speed manual gear box you can get the V6 with a semi-auto as well but this is the manual rear wheeel drive and this is producing about 400 horsepower so a little bit more power but I still think it's in that it's in that region of power and torque that makes it really usable on a normal road you can really get on these cars and they're don't get me wrong they're very very quick but I think if you get in some very high-end performance cars or supercars that are north of 500 horsepower they've almost got too much power to use safely on the public road I don't feel that with these two cars but but the interesting thing is lotuses are known for their lightweight this car though is just a smidge over 1,400 kilos so yes it's lighter than the boxer but not by a great deal and the reason for that we'll see in a moment when you get inside it because this is a Lotus that has an interior you actually want to sit in but let's talk interior and we'll start off with mine now A couple of years ago when I'd had the Clubman written off and I was looking for a new car I was very close to buying a Lotus Exes from hendy they sourced me one of the very last xees it was in a very lurid shade of green and it was an amazing car very track focused but it was the interior amongst a couple of other things that really put me off because it was just so strip back just so basic and I wanted my car to be a car that I could daily although I don't really daily this car but do long Journeys in Drive tours I wanted it to be somewhere really beautiful to sit in and and and that's exactly why I love this car so much this box do interior is beautiful it's very comfortable very well appointed it just has a quality feel to it and I love it to bits the exes not so much however IM miror now that's a different story this isn't like any Lotus I've ever sat in it's a really nicely appointed place in here I know this car shares a lot of of underpinnings with aora even though Lotus said it was a brand new car the the differen is though firstly it's got carpets the seals although they're wide they're not so wide that it impairs you getting in and out of the vehicle without looking like a complete fool and then once you're in it's just a really nicely appointed cabin the seats are lovely the driving position is fantastic the steering wheels are slightly weird shape but it's very driver focused and then this gearbox we talk about this when we get out driving it is once you get your head around it it's a thing of delight so yes this is now definitely a Lotus that you could sit in for a long journey you could daily it it's beautiful you know it it's not a kind of track special car this is a luxury nicely equipped car that you could do a dri tour in the challenge though if you're going to do a drive tour you're going to want to take stuff with you so the big question for me is how much stuff can you get in this car compared with my boxer first up my boxer I'm always amazed by just how much stuff you can get in a boxer when you're going away first up you have a front storage area a frunk or a fruit and you can see in here there's absolutely huge amounts of space in there you will easily get a couple of cabin bags um crash helmet if you're doing a track day something along those lines it's a huge storage area up front in a boxer or a Cayman and then we walk around the back although it's mid engines and I've got obviously to make some space here for the retractable soft top if we come around into the boot there's a really Ample Storage Space in the boot um it's not quite as big as the front but you can still get plenty of stuff in there and it kind of goes in at the back as well you can really especially if you're using soft bags you can get loads of stuff in there and the engine in this car is kind of behind that bulkhead the only giveaway are um some little caps there to do things like topping engine oil up so it's a huge amount of storage in a boxer so when I looked at the Lotus the first thing I thought of oh okay well it's bound to have a kind of front storage area just like the boxer right in here nope so there's no storage in there at all in fact you can't actually get this I mean it's beautifully sculpted I love the way the the the sculpting of that goes in there very EV you can see kind of family DNA but there's no storage up front at all in terms of rear stowage well you can come around the back the challenge with rear storage and I'll compare it to the Box the first off you've got this quite small storage area there I've got a little trickle char lger but it's not massive and the Big Challenge is it's in the engine compartment and that engine has the potential to get hot and if you were to compare that with the Cayman the Cayman has an engine just there but it's got a parcel shelf and you can put stuff on the parcel shelf and it just makes it an awful lot more uh practical so that's the first bit of storage and then the second bit if we just come around there's some internal storage and and this is something you don't get in the boxer um but if we look at the back of the seats in here I've got a little flick here and I'll pull the seat forward that now is a parcel shelf where I can store soft bags those types of things but it's not a gigantic amount so I think the the the challenge with this car for me and I didn't realize it until I picked it up and that's for me one of the great things about having cars like this as long termers is I think it's not that you couldn't take this on a drive tour you just have to be really clever with your packing and also the stuff you put in the rear make sure that none of that is temperature sensitive you know don't go delivering Easter eggs in a Lotus imir otherwise you're going to end up with basically just liquid chocolate by the time you get there but in its defense boxer and Cayman for me are remarkable at the amount of luggage you can get in them now I must admit right now I am a lucky boy and very spoiled for Choice having having these two in my garage which one do I choose which set of keys do I go for well I think the only way we can talk about that is to take them both out for a drive and talk about a number of different things to do with driving so first up a comment that I've had in a couple of comments is could you daily Drive these cars so let's head out onto some lovely roads avoid the potholes and answer a few questions about the driving dynamics of these two beautiful cars but I think you'll agree from the outside so first driving question I'll be asked quite a lot I'm sure is could you daily drive a box to GTS and the simple answer to that is absolutely you could I don't however with this car I try and keep the miles under control as much as possible but when the weather's like this when the sun is out and shining and it's dry it's difficult not to pick up the keys to this car and go for a drive with a roof down it's a stunning thing but I do try and keep this car for the more special occasions okay so could you daily hello to Samir of course you could would I want to probably not now actually the regular running of the car would probably help it out a great deal if you weren't running it regularly I'd have this car on a trickle charger there's one in the boot and that's not something I ever need to worry about with my Porsche but I just get the feeling that this car needs a little bit more coting and a little bit more love but the reason I wouldn't daily drive this car is because of just how special it is I'm not saying the boxer isn't special but this thing has a sense of occasion about it you walk up to it in the garage and it just looks fantastic you get in it and it makes you feel amazing and I just wouldn't want to I wouldn't want that to become too familiar too regular An Occurrence I'd want to long for it I'd wait for the whole week of work and then on a Sunday morning when the weather's like this I'd go for a drive or i' plan a road trip and I'd do something special in the car so could you daily a Lotus Sam Mir it's probably the most dable Lotus there's ever been but I wouldn't want to do it and that's putting to oneide any concerns you've got about mileage and those types of things so next up is noise and I'm sure a big old debate let's hear this one first this car does sound good it's got a miltech aftermarket OPF back exhaust on it which just gives it a bit more bark and a bit more Rumble but even the fan I am of the 4- cylinder turbo boxer engine in this car I can't deny that if you had a boxer with the six-cylinder engine in it it would sound better when you get those up in the top end of the Rev range they absolutely whale and it's hard to think of a much better sounding engine but in it defense this little four pot sounds pretty good now I know my boxer would sound much better with six cylinders that's not something you have to worry about in this car ready just listen to [Music] that I am a big kid when it comes to superchargers there's something about supercharger wine in a car that I find simply intoxicating when you come down into a corner and you just the just the crescendo of noise it's a constant whine in the background and then you just get on it and change gear it's a magnificent thing and I've had a few people follow me and this car makes just as good a noise on the outside of the car as it does on the inside of the car so I'm afraid certainly comparing this to my car this wins hands down every time I'm not quite ass sure it would be so close if you had a six-cylinder boxer especially if you had the sports exhaust or an aftermarket exhaust on because at full chat those things sound magnificent but honestly this V6 am miror it's just it just sounds awesome absolutely awesome and unfortunately it eggs you on and it makes you just want to drive more and oh we just listened to that and out the corner oh [Music] yeah so what are these cars like to drive down a nice bit of Road well I just bloody love this car it has just the most beautiful steering the perfect balance of power a fantastic gearbox and you don't actually have to drive it all that quick especially on a sunny day when you've got the roof down it just makes you feel great about the world to be honest this car there's very little I don't like about it yes you could say you could have the 4 L GTS it's got more power it's got that serous 6cylinder engine which might give you that little bit more of an engaging drive but seriously you take a box to GTS down any nice bit of Road and get to the far end of it without a smile on your face and without just throwing flait at the car because of how good it is then I really don't understand you as a person and as a driver because they are phenomenal things and if you put a tint top roof on it and turned it into a Cayman it would be just as good phenomenal car driving my box to down this road quickly takes skill but driving this Lotus down here is a whole another level this gear box is beautiful very close Gates on it very short throw very clunky and mechanical but it does take quite a bit of getting used to pedals are perfectly spaced for heel and towing there's no Auto flip feature on this car so you have to do it for yourself once you get your head around the gearbox though oh man this car delivers in terms of driving engagement like very few cars are driven it's you've got to be so on it though you can feel the lightness of the car it's much more jittery than the Porsche it kind of feeds back far more about what's happening on the road surface and that makes for an engaging drive but that also means that you you really need to to be quite a a competent driver to exploit the most out of this car I think the Porsche will do quite a lot for you but this thing you need to do it all yourself and going back to the daily driver question that's another reason why I think daily driving this car would be not a pain but more of a challenge because this gearbox is just not as relaxing you really do have to think about everything you need to drive this car smoothly you need to be really in tune with the car you need to have really great feel on the clutch and the throttle you need to get your head around the gates of the gearbox but for me that's everything driving's about that's everything that makes me feel great after a a drive that you just think oh you know when you get a great gear change you get a nice heel and toe and your whole body goes yeah that was a good one and you just think about everything that's taking place between you and the car and that is the essence of this car that's everything this car is about that's everything for me a pure driver's car is about Lotus have been doing that for years and this airor delivers that in absolute Spades the brakes are very good down into second might grab first here cuz it's quite a tight corner I'm in track mode so the traction controls just backed off a little bit but I mean seriously down to B- Road this is as this is as good a car as I can imagine you'd want yes it's faster than the boxer but but not not by a massive amount but it's just the lightweight Nimble feel to it it's just delicious absolutely delicious Heroes going up the petrol P hill climb on a bike come on Chapo with this [Music] car [Music] wow okay so we head up the Petr pet Hill Climb last thing to mention briefly is the gearbox in this car you can get it in a manual but I love the pdk in a Porsche but I guess we need to finish off by talking price and this is where this comparison kind of falls down a little bit because I thought this car used not new but honestly I think that's probably where the Lotus starts to have some problems I'm afraid goce car eats this hill up boy oh boy calm down a bit now final thing I want to talk about with this car though is price I mentioned the fact that the comparison with the box is a bit unfair because I I bought my boxer used my challenge with this car is when they first came to Market Lotus were talking about a car that was going to cost high end of 60s maybe early '70s and the first cars that was about where they were unfortunately the first car started to sell quite above list and Lotus adjusted the price so we're now looking at around about 90,000 quid now first up there's a lot of car here for £90,000 in terms of the way it makes you feel as a driver the performance you've got and most importantly the looks you got super car looks for sub 100,000 my problem is though with that is it starts to bump you up against some really really good cars and if we're thinking about the Porsche comparison a fuller GTS Cayman or boxer is going to give this car for a run for its money even more so than mine did but for 90 grand you can start to look at maybe even getting into something like a Cayman GT4 used admittedly but a Cayman GT4 in this W now that's a comparison I'd like to do now admittedly you can also see amir's used ones on the market for much more sensible money you know 50s 60s maybe and that that's a lot of car I guess some of you will con be concerned about um the reliability issues I know quite a few people with these that have had problems with them but I could say that about most cars to be fair you know everyone slags off McLaren I've got a mate of mine who's just done a drive tour in a 675 LT no problems at all he's done like 15 160,000 miles in that car and he's had no problems at all in that LE quite fan is one of these so there's always Tales of wo with every brand and I know Lotus need to sort a few things out but on the hole this car wow now I will be doing a full review of this car there's still things I haven't talked about in this car but I didn't want to do it all in one video the next thing I need to do is take this car to find some really cool roads maybe in Wales or Yorkshire or somewhere cool so stay tuned to the channel for that but I hope you've enjoyed this one a difficult one to film and lots and lots to talk about so it's probably way too long but yeah big thanks to hendy Lotus of Southampton which is in eastly I'll put their details below this is one of their demonstrators if you want to have a going in one of these find out what it's like for yourself I would strongly recommend doing that because they are an incredible bit of kit but for now I'm going to head on home and then think about my next Drive in the Lotus I hope you enjoyed that one guys if you did give me a thumbs up comments below are always welcome and if you haven't done so already please subscribe to peten for plenty more content to come and I'll see you on the next film you take care guys drive safe ah [Music]

Channel: Petrol Ped

Views: 77,155

Keywords: petrol ped, ped petrol, petrol head, petrol ped youtube, youtube petrol ped, vlogger, youtuber, cars, supercars, performance cars, motorsport, car review, launch events, press drive, automotive, fast cars, sports cars, dream car, car racing, racing, expensive cars, porsche, porsche boxster, lotus, lotus emira, lotus emira v6, emira vs cayman, emira vs boxster, boxster vs emira, porsche vs lotus, porsche cayman vs lotus emira, porsche 718 vs lotus emira, porsche gt4 vs lotus emira

Id: noYmiCDCTYw

Length: 25min 8sec (1508 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 26 2024