Lotus

A Lotus rental is the one for the person who wants to be asked what it is rather than how much it cost. Lotus builds the Emira in two forms, the Emira V6 and the Emira 2.0, and from the outside nobody can tell them apart, so the choice is entirely about what you want to feel in the seat.

Emira V6

The V6 is the enthusiast's pick and the one people who know Lotus ask for by name. A supercharged 3.5 liter engine sits under a glass cover behind your head, the steering is fully hydraulic, which almost nobody builds anymore, and the dominant sound in the cabin is the supercharger, a rush of air like a window cracked open at speed. Pick it for the Sunday morning canyon with one passenger who cares, and for the drive that is the whole reason for the weekend.

Emira 2.0

The 2.0 is the same car with a dual-clutch automatic, and it is the easier of the two to live with in Los Angeles traffic. The paddles shift instantly, it downshifts on its own into a corner, and there is no clutch to manage on the 405 at 5 pm. It is not the one to book for noise. It is the one to book if you want the Lotus chassis, the glass engine cover and the stranger's question at every gas station without the workload. Pick it for the first-timer, the two-pedal driver, and any day with more city in it than canyon.

What Both Share

Easy entry compared with anything else mid-engine, a ride owners say is softer than a 911 on a bad road, air conditioning they rate as the coldest they have used, and brakes that bite hard at low speed until you learn a light foot. Wear thin-soled shoes. The pedals sit close together. Lotus rentals run about $595 a day for either car.

The Car That Starts Conversations

Pull up in a Lotus and the reaction is different from every other exotic. Nobody knows what it is. Most people read it as a Ferrari, some read it as a McLaren, and the ones who walk over ask rather than photograph. On a Southern California street where a Lamborghini is furniture, the Emira is the one genuinely new object on the road, and it says taste over spend to anyone who does know. That is the Lotus image. Curiosity without resentment, and a conversation at every stop instead of a phone held up from across the street.

Kids run over. Other sports car drivers give the thumbs up. Traffic lets you out of side streets and then speeds up to get a better look. The car draws people in rather than keeping them back.

Why It Feels Like a Lotus

The company built its name on weight, and the Emira is the last combustion-engined Lotus. A bonded aluminum chassis, an engine behind the seats, and a body that is small enough to place on a canyon road to the inch. The V6's steering is hydraulic, so pebbles, tar strips and lane reflectors arrive through your palms as texture, and the supercharger sitting under the rear glass gives every throttle press a sound like air rushing through a gap. Look in the mirror at a stoplight, blip the throttle, and you can watch the linkage move.

The Emira 2.0 keeps the chassis and the glass cover and swaps in a dual-clutch gearbox that shifts without hesitation and reads the road for you, dropping a gear as you brake for a bend. Both cars come with theater you only find once you are in. A cage over the start button. A mesh surround on the shifter. Windows that go down at speed with no buffeting, which almost no mid-engine car manages. The Emira does not need a badge to make its argument, because the argument arrives through the steering wheel.

Where the Emira Belongs

A Lotus rental in Southern California is a road rental, and this region has the roads. Angeles Crest at 7 in the morning. Mulholland before the traffic. Ortega Highway from San Juan Capistrano over to Lake Elsinore. Palms to Pines out of Palm Desert, climbing 5,000 feet in an hour with the supercharger whining the whole way. Pacific Coast Highway works too, but the Emira would rather be in a canyon than on a boulevard, and it books that way.

Getting It to You

We deliver the Emira across Los Angeles, Orange County, San Diego, the Inland Empire and Palm Springs, to a house, a hotel, or the curb at LAX, SNA, BUR, LGB, ONT, SAN and PSP. Lotus rentals run about $595 a day, and longer rentals cost less per day.

Drive a Lotus

Getting in is easier than you expect, wider door, narrower sill, and then the cabin closes around you and the windshield feels close. The first surprise is the brakes. They bite at walking pace, so you learn a light foot in the first block. The second surprise is the steering. In the V6 it is heavy and alive, and the surface of the road comes through your hands as information, every seam and every painted line. Find a canyon, drop a gear, and the supercharger sound builds like wind through a cracked window while the nose goes exactly where you looked. The car is small, and on a road with corners that matters more than horsepower, because you can use all of it. In the 2.0 the same road arrives with the gearbox doing the shifting and the chassis doing the rest. Either way you get out at the top talking faster than you went in.