Can’t beat a Whatsapp message like that one. “Ollie, are you free next Thursday? Fastest Lotus versus Porsche grudge match in south Wales.” Count me in. I’ll have to unfurl the thermal cagoule because the weather will be howling, but I’ll happily cosplay as an oil rig worker for an ultimate Britain versus Germany sports car showdown.
Imagine my surprise. Abergavenny thinks it’s Andalusia and the cars dispatched to battle it out in the sun scorched valleys boast back doors, big boots and a combined weight of five tonnes. And for once, Stuttgart is outgunned by Norfolk.
The Lotus Eletre R offers up 905bhp, so in the continued absence of the forever delayed Evija hypercar, this 5.1 metre banana is the most powerful Lotus of all time – apart from the mid-Eighties turbo F1 cars in time bomb quali spec.
Against that, all the Porsche Cayenne Turbo e-Hybrid can muster is a measly 729bhp. For about five minutes this was the most powerful series production Porsche in history, until it was trumped by yet another walloping EV: the Taycan Turbo GT.
Two ways to make an unreasonably fast
