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Lotus 'Eagle' (2009): first pictures

This is the long-awaited new Lotus 2+2, with a 3.5-litre Toyota V6 and four apparently useable seats. It's the first new Lotus for 13 years and a pretty significant launch, due for its show debut at the 2008 London motor show later this month on 22 July 2008. That's when we’ll find out the name of this new Lotus – codenamed Eagle – but in the meantime the company is teasing us with some new details. These include the car’s sub-five second 0-60mph time, its estimated 160mph top speed and the promise of convertible and high-performance versions. Read on for the full first details and analysis of the new Lotus Eagle.
Is it still called the Lotus Eagle?
For now, as that’s the car’s project name – but the production car will bear a regular Lotus 'E' name, predicted to be a short, pithy tag. This is a true Lotus at heart, after all; early prototypes of the are considerably faster than the Elise, Hethel spokesmen claim, and more stable at speed than the Exige, too.
Of course the Lotus Eagle should be one of the quickest four-seaters around, with an aluminium chassis and a composite roof help to keep weight low in time-honoured Lotus fashion. Add in that 3.5-litre V6 Toyota engine equipped with dual VVT-i (‘intelligent’ variable valve timing) producing 276bhp and we wouldn’t expect anything less from Lotus. The torque figure should be at least 250lb ft.
The rest of the Eagle's spec is pretty impressive too, with 350mm four-pot AP racing brakes, Bilstein dampers and Eibach springs.
And the looks? We'll let you judge the design for yourself, suffice to say that this first official photograph had most at CAR recalling the M250 concept shown at the start of the decade; it was designed as a smarter Lotus to slot above the Elise but failed to meet global homologation standards and was subsequently parked. Much of its spirit seems alive and well in the new Eagle.

Smart MHD micro-hybrid CAR review

The Smart Fortwo MHD has been available in Europe since October 2007. MHD is Smart-talk for a stop/start system and stands for Micro Hybrid Drive. UK versions of the 61bhp and 71bhp Smart will have MHD from October 2008, while the punchier 84bhp and Brabus models will have it in 2009.
Time for CAR to take one out for a traffic-jam test drive.
How does the Smart Fortwo’s MHD stop/start work?
Bigger stop/start systems like that in the A-class BlueEfficiency add a belt-driven starter-generator, but keep the conventional starter motor for cold starts. In the Smart, both the starter and alternator are replaced by the starter-generator.
The system generates electricity to charge the battery when the driver is braking, and automatically cuts the engine when the speed drops below 8km/h (about 5mph). It then re-starts the engine when the driver releases the brakes.

Mercedes SLK's panoramic glass roof: the spy photos

Want to turn your Mercedes SLK into a goldfish bowl? Our spies have caught this prototype out on test with a panoramic glass roof, which is being readied for launch on the next-generation SLK. It's like the panoramic glass vario roof available on the SLK's bigger brother, the SL. So expect a similar cost of around £1400 – and we hear it's a popular option on top-spec SLs. Does a glass roof affect operation of the SLK's folding hard-top?Apparently not, but we guess that's what the engineers are testing right now. It essentially just changes the main roof section from metal to toughened glass like your average laminated windcreen. But CAR's spy photos prove the vario roof is heavily tinted to protect your bonce from solar radiation.The idea is that it bathes the cabin in light, for those occasions when you don't want to lower the roof because it's too hot or you're driving through a polluted city, for instance. Just the ticket for roadster buyers who want to see and be seen, then.This test mule is an interesting vehicle, since it's based on the pre-facelift SLK. Well placed sources told CAR that the glass roof won't be offered in the lifetime of this SLK, pointing to the next-generation car due