Lotus has signed a deal for Cosworth to tune its Toyota engines for road and race use.
The tie-up will initially focus on tuning the 4.0-litre V6 Toyota engine that powers the Lotus Evora Cup racing car, but Lotus says it will extend to the creation of "high performance engines based upon existing Toyota powertrains".
“The ties between Lotus and Cosworth are, of course, already historical ones but our new strategic relationship is based purely on Cosworth’s competencies, brand and race engine development capabilities," said Group Lotus chief executive Dany Bahar.
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Re: Cosworth to tune Lotus engines
This really isn't true, Lotus are developing all sorts of innovative variations to the conventional 4 stroke piston engine.
The fact that they're sub-contracting Cosworth to develop the Toyota engines is a credit to them for sticking to their own agenda and not trying to do too much.
Re: Cosworth to tune Lotus engines
Lotus used to have their own engine people. These days it seems their engine dept can only write software for the ECU.
Re: Cosworth to tune Lotus engines
Now that is good news. Lotus is my favourite brand of sports car (I'm on my 4th). But they can on occasion be rather conservative when it comes to bhp, rightly choosing to find 'performance through lightweight' instead. However throw Cosworth into the mix and we've got a mouth watering prospect. Beautifully engineered, lightweight cars with best in class steering, handling and ride plus unnecessary amounts of power. I'll be delaying my next purchase then until I see what they come up with. For those who don't already know Mike Costin and Keith Duckworth (founders of Cosworth - well it was either that or Ducktin!) were originally Lotus engineers in the Chapman era. Great to see the two companies working together again. I have had my doubts about Danny Bahar but one thing is already clear, he has a great respect for Lotus's phenomenal motorsport heritage. This collaboration would appear to be another example.