Lotus Emira Finance

Lotus Emira finance deals and what they cost

Car finance deals are usually quoted as one monthly figure with the structure hidden behind it, which makes them impossible to compare. The table prices the same Lotus Emira three ways, on a 20% deposit of £17,000 over 48 months at an indicative 8.9% nominal. Only the structure changes, so the gap between rows is the cost of the structure rather than the car.

Hire Purchase amortises the whole balance, which is why it is the highest payment at £1,689 and the only row with no final payment to plan for. Lease Purchase defers £42,500 to a final balloon, taking £740 a month off. Personal Contract Purchase looks similar and differs underneath, because that final payment is a Guaranteed Minimum Future Value the lender stands behind rather than a balloon you have agreed to pay.

The Emira is the last car Lotus will build with a petrol engine, and Hethel has been assembling it in series for several years now. Both halves of that sentence matter to a lender. Series production means completed sales to price against, so the residual value written into your agreement is measured rather than guessed at. The end of an engine era means demand that has not behaved like ordinary sports car demand, because a buyer who wants a supercharged Lotus with three pedals has a shrinking number of places to find one.

Two quite different cars wear the Emira badge and an underwriter values them separately. The 400 bhp supercharged 3.5-litre V6 can still be ordered with a six-speed manual, which is close to extinct at this level, while the turbocharged four-cylinder cars are automatic only and sell to a wider audience. When we submit an Emira we state the engine, the gearbox and the chassis specification at the outset, because a funder that prices the wrong configuration comes back with the wrong figure and the whole application has to be run again.

Behind the car sits a marque that has changed shape. Geely took a controlling stake in Lotus in 2017 and the investment that followed rebuilt Hethel, put a hypercar and an electric SUV into the range, and turned a company that sold in the hundreds into one selling in far greater numbers. Commercial lenders read that as stability rather than novelty, and it is a large part of why the Lotus Emira attracts a broader panel than anything the marque sold a decade ago.

Which finance structure suits the Lotus Emira

Our answer on the Emira is Personal Contract Purchase. A guaranteed future value exists only where a lender will stand behind it, and on the Emira it will: £34,000 at the close of 48 months, with any fall below that number the lender's problem rather than yours.

Hire Purchase suits the buyer who has no intention of giving the car back, and a fair number of Emira orders are placed by exactly that person. This is the final petrol car from Hethel and the manual V6 is the version people talk about keeping for good. Hire Purchase costs £1,689 a month against £1,097, and it finishes with the Lotus Emira unencumbered and no settlement to fund.

If you came here looking for Lotus Emira leasing or lease deals, the distinction worth knowing is that we do not arrange contract hire, where the car goes back at the end and was never yours. Lease Purchase is the structure closest to what most people mean by leasing a Emira: the same lower monthly payment, with legal ownership from the first payment. Contract hire on cars of this value is rare, and sites offering it usually quote short-term rental rather than finance.

Hethel is mid-transition, and the residual behaviour of a Lotus now depends almost entirely on whether it has a petrol engine. The Lotus Emira sits inside that position as a series-production car with enough of a sales record behind it for a lender to forecast.

Financing a used Lotus Emira

A pre-owned Emira market now exists, which was not true when the first cars were handed over, and it is the least expensive route into the model. A car two or three years into its life has taken the sharpest part of its correction, so the same deposit buys a lower monthly payment and the residual value underneath the agreement is proportionally sturdier. First Edition cars, which carried a fixed high specification, are the ones the used market asks for by name.

What an underwriter wants on a used Lotus Emira is an unbroken Lotus service record, a clean vehicle report with no outstanding credit registered against the car, and evidence that nothing has been changed. Provenance carries the file here. Aftermarket exhausts, suspension and wheels all narrow the pool of buyers willing to take the car on at the end of your term, and a funder that can see a narrower exit prices for it.

Pre-owned cars price the same way with smaller numbers. A used Emira at £42,500, on the same 20% deposit and 8.9% rate, comes to £844 a month on Hire Purchase. Age matters less to a lender than provenance, whatever the mileage reads.

Part exchange and settlement on a Lotus Emira

Three things can happen at the end of a Lease Purchase term on a Lotus Emira, and it is worth knowing which you are planning for. You settle the £42,500 balloon and keep the car, you refinance it over a further term, or you part exchange the Emira and take whatever sits above the balloon as equity toward the next one.

Running an Emira is inexpensive by the standards of this catalogue, and that bears directly on how long a term to choose. The supercharged V6 has a conventional service schedule, the tyres are a normal performance size, and the car tolerates real use rather than punishing it. The constraint is network. Lotus dealers are thinly spread across the United Kingdom, so settle where the car will be serviced before you commit to the longer end of what is available.

Warranty position is the other thing to resolve before signing. On a new car the manufacturer cover runs through most of a 48 month term, which makes the running budget predictable alongside the payment. On a used Emira the remaining cover varies car by car, and the cost of extending it belongs in the purchase negotiation rather than in a discovery a year into the agreement.

Part exchange is the route most owners take, and it is where the residual value does the most work. If the Emira is worth more than the balloon, the difference becomes the deposit on your next agreement. If it is worth less, the Guaranteed Minimum Future Value protects you on Personal Contract Purchase, while on Lease Purchase the shortfall is yours.

Early settlement is available on every structure we arrange, but the settlement figure is calculated under the terms of the agreement rather than under the Consumer Credit Act rebate rules. Ask us for it in writing before you fix a sale date on the Emira.

Other ACBC roundel models we finance

The Lotus Emira sits at £85,000 in a range we finance end to end. Either side of it are the Exige at £45,000 and the Eletre at £89,500, and the monthly payment moves broadly in step with list price when deposit and term are held constant.

The other Lotus cars we arrange finance deals on are the Lotus Eletre, the Lotus Evija, the Lotus Exige and the Lotus Elise, each with its own page and payment table, because a lender does not price a range, it prices a car.