Today is Easter Sunday, Happy Easter to those who celebrate it! This afternoon I was at Marque in the Park 2025 in Bath, after making a discovery it was a thing in the morning. I didn’t really know what to expect as I was driving there, with the advertisement saying, ‘there’s a car here for everyone, from 1950 to 2024.’ But as I drove past the park’s gates on London Road, I caught a glimpse of what was on offer. It looked promising!
Walking in, this was the first thing that caught my eye, mostly due to the colour. A Lotus Evora 400. I started taking photos, like any enthusiast would, and the owner came up to me and we started talking. I asked him what engine was in it; he replied a 416-horsepower supercharged 3.5-liter V6. But the interesting thing was that he told me that some take it to Litchfield and tune it to 430 horsepower, or to a safe max of 475 horsepower. But let’s be real, who needs more than 416 horsepower on UK roads!
Next was the colour, and this is where things got spicy. What was actually before my eyes was a special edition Evora, limited to just 10 units, designed to commemorate Lotus’ 50 year anniversary occupying the Hethel airfield factory. The gentleman said that this was number 6/10, and was the first UK example, also saying that “there is one Australia, as well as one in America.”
For the colour of this lightweight Smurf, Lotus turned to social media, opening up the polls to its followers. Amongst the options was a yellow-on-black combo, but none had the historical and aesthetic pull to overcome the wave of Gulf fans. So Lotus listened, and here it is, a Evora 400 in a Gulf Livery. And it looks fabulous, but the changes for this special edition were only skin deep.