The main thing that would stop Lotus from building its radical, futuristic Theory 1 concept is its lack of a front wiper mechanism, the company’s chief designer has said.
The 986bhp, Esprit-inspired three-seater was revealed last year as a showcase of innovative new technology and next-generation design cues that Lotus was looking to bring to future cars.
The company hasn't confirmed plans to develop it into a production car, but Lotus Group vice-president of design Ben Payne said the concept is “deliberately” a realistic design proposition and its headline features and cues are “well within the realms of reality”.
Speaking to Autocar at a new exhibition celebrating Lotus’s design DNA at the brand’s flagship showroom in Mayfair, Payne described the Theory 1 as a “scalable timeline of innovation” featuring barely any elements that make it unviable for production.
"There are things on this car which we are able to do now,” he said. “To actually put that car in its entirety into production is a bit of a stretch, but it informs the future."
He highlighted that the electric supercar’s dimensions are roughly on a par with the existing Evija hypercar – “so there's nothing here that goes beyond the normal dimensions of a production vehicle” – and said many of its radical technologies are simply new interpretations or evolutions of systems that exist in production cars already.
The ultra-lightweight AP Racing carbon-ceramic brake discs and cast aluminium calipers, for example, are simply “one generation on” from those that feature on the Evija; the super-sticky Pirelli P-Zero Elect tyres are now fitted to other production cars; and the recycled carbonfibre bodywork “can be done today; it's just down to customer demand and whether people want to engage in it”.
The highly advanced digital technology showcased in the Theory 1, meanwhile, is already in production elsewhere, “we’ve just never shown it on a sports car”. Examples include the projected head-up displays, which are “becoming more commonplace” and the electric rear-view mirrors, which are taken from the Emeya saloon, “so that’s not pushing it”.
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Go on then, if the fix is so easy, the car sounds innovative and from the image different to other cars of this ilk,it's just the asking price, nobody's talked about that have they?