Lotus is in trouble, but this new British sports car maker could take its place

It’s a time of turmoil at Lotus. With bleak sales figures, rumors of Hethel closing down and boss Matt Windle recently leaving the company, clearly all is not well at one of the world’s great sports car makers. But as Lotus’s future looks uncertain, new British sports car brand Longbow emerged earlier this year with a similar lightweight ethos, and has now announced that ex-Lotus, McLaren and Alpine execs will help bring its sports cars to market. 

With its Speedster and Roadster EVs, Longbow is tasked with making electric sports cars appealing, which hasn’t proven easy for others so far. MG’s Cyberster has the looks and performance but is way off the pace dynamically, while Porsche’s electric 718 has had a long, drawn-out development and a delayed launch. The market doesn’t seem ready for battery-powered driver’s cars, but Longbow has a strong team of execs on board and conviction in its vision. Its senior advisors include ex-Lotus Europe boss Dan Balmer, former McLaren Automotive CEO Mike Flewitt and Michael van der Sande, who had stints at Aston Martin, Alpine and Lucid.

Longbow’s approach is different to most and refreshing for an EV manufacturer, majoring on simplicity and lightweight rather than headlining grabbing numbers. The Speedster and Roadster are designed to be engaging on the road first and foremost, and described by the company as spiritual successors to the Elise. They’ll be designed, developed and hand-built in the UK, with the Roadster (counter intuitively) taking a smooth, flowing coupe form and the Speedster almost looking like a scaled down Ferrari Monza SP2. 

A bespoke aluminium structure and lightweight engineering throughout means more compact motors and batteries can be used, while still achieving the performance you’d expect from a sports car. That’s brought overall projected weight down to just 895kg for the Speedster, and 995kg for the Roadster. Power figures haven’t been announced, but the open-top version can hit 62mph in 3.5sec with the coupe being a tenth slower. Longbow quotes a 275-mile range for the former. 

Other technical details are thin on the ground, but Longbow says that it’s drawing from ‘world-class’ engineers in the UK to hone the powertrain, chassis and electronics of its cars. Neither the Roadster or Speedster are cheap, starting from £64,995 and £84,995 respectively, but that puts them in a similar ball park to a Cayman S at the low-end, and a four-cylinder Emira at the top. Their nearest rival will be Caterham’s Project V, which has a projected starting price of less than £80k, a 0-62mph time in the low 4sec range and a quoted kerb weight of 1190kg. 

Longbow is on track to bring the cars to market in 2026, with customers currently being able to reserve one of the 150 Roadsters or Speedsters, and the first builds being special editions.