Lotus Might Drop A V8 Into The Emira And It’s Not The One You’d Expect

Backtracking on its pledge to go EV-only isn’t the only combustion-related U-turn going on at Lotus. A new report says the Emira sports car, which was due to be downgraded to an exclusively four-cylinder lineup, could be about to get an upgrade to V8 power.

The Emira is currently available with an AMG 2.0-liter four making 400 hp (406 PS) and a less efficient but more charismatic Toyota-sourced supercharged V6 that pumps out the same number of horses but is the only version available with a manual transmission.

Related: Lotus Built A Retro Emira With A Hidden Tribute To Jim Clark Inside

Lotus had planned to pension-off the V6 to concentrate solely on the AMG motor, but strong demand for the six in the US means the Emira will continue with two powertrain options. The problem is the Toyota engine won’t meet upcoming Euro 7 emissions legislation so Lotus needs to find a replacement. And its successor will likely be a V8. Confirmation of the plan to boost the Emira’s cylinder count comes via comments from Lotus CEO Feng Qingfeng, who told investors his team was “currently investigating the feasibility of the V8.”

And it looks like that V8 could come from AMG, based on what Lotus Europe’s boss and head of the brand’s Hethel plant told Autocar. While Matt Windle didn’t specifically mention V8 power or the German company, he did make clear that “there are some opportunities with the current supplier of engines, so we’re looking at it.”

AMG already supplies its bi-turbo V8 engines to Aston Martin as well as providing inline fours to Lotus, so the idea sounds solid, provided the V8 could be made to fit between the Emira’s rear chassis legs (the AMG’s hot-vee design should help here).

If this story had broken a couple of years ago there might have been another possibility. An “opportunity with a current supplier” could also have referred to the 5.0-liter naturally-aspirated V8 fitted to the Lexus RC and LC. But although both are still available in the US, the cars were dropped in Europe last year due to “legislative and homologation issues,” meaning they’re almost certainly out of the running.

Whatever engine Lotus adopts for its first V8 sports car since the Esprit bowed out in 2004, we just hope it works out how to package it with a manual transmission – something Aston did manage with the AMG-powered Vantage briefly, though the shift quality was terrible.

A more immediate problem for Lotus is restarting Emira shipments to the US. The company stopped exports to America last month following the announcement of Trump’s tariffs, Windle telling Autocar that he was waiting to see the small print of the recent agreement to cut tariffs to 10 percent before putting Emiras on the boat again.