(continued from above)
Having been honed on Lotus' Hethel Test Track, the car has already found its
first customers. McMahon Raceworks with Condor Motorsport has just placed an
order for their Evora GTC, and will enter it in America's Grand-Am road races,
the Rolex Sports Car Series. The team led by David McMahon with Armando Trentini
as lead driver and consultant, spent two days this week getting familiar with
the machine on the ragged edge at Lotus Headquarters.
Meanwhile, Team Bullrun's Evora GT4 will be converted to GTC-spec in June. Raced
by British drivers Richard Adams, David Green and Martin Byford, Bullrun's Evora
has proved phenomenally competitive in the 2012 Britcar MSA Endurance
Championship and currently leads the standings.
The engine and gearbox of the GT4 Enduro are carried over to the GTC, but the
car has been on a diet. Carbon-fiber doors, roof and engine cover have replaced
fiberglass panels, and Plexiglass replaces the windows in order to trim yet more
weight off what is already a very light car. At 2,491-2,513 lbs (1,130-1,140
kg), depending on customer specification, the GTC is 66 lbs (30 kg) lighter than
the Enduro.
It's not all take-away. Traction control and BOSCH racing Anti-Lock Brakes
system have been added to optimize power delivery and braking control. With
England being particularly damp for the past month, serious testing of the GTC
has taken place in the wet where the car's intelligent traction control and ABS
have come to the fore. A definitive comparison test will be conducted shortly,
but already it has proved to be faster than the previous evolution.
The wheels and tires are wider which not only gives the car more grip through
the curves, the front and rear wheels rise to 18x10Js and 12Js respectively,
mated to 27/65 R18 tires at the front and 30/65 R18s at the rear.
In order to accommodate the wider wheels, flared arches have been fitted, which
give the car a more aggressive silhouette.
Its 4-liter V6 continues to pump out 450 hp and 340 lb-ft (460 Nm) of torque,
linked to an XTRAC six-speed sequential paddle-shift gearbox.
As well as the MSA Endurance Series and Grand-Am GTC (undergoing homologation),
the car is eligible for the British GT Championship, VdeV Series, Dutch
Supercar, and CREVENTIC Endurance Races, such as the Dubai 24 Hours and the 12
Hours of Bathurst.
