Lotus just unveiled pricing for its newest sports car, the Evora. For the lofty cost of around $73,500, you too can have seating for 1.5 friends, a Toyota-sourced V6 engine with 276 horsepower and a 6-speed manual transmission. Past that, don’t expect too many of the crazy tech gadgets you’ll find on most modern cars. Sure, there’s navigation and iPod connectivity -- but night vision, heated/cooled/massaging seats and the like are all conspicuously missing from the option list. Why is the Evora so expensive? Because it, like most Lotus products, is a true driving machine. For less than the cost of a well-outfitted BMW 535i you can have any number of Lotus products -- complete with handling that bests anything Lamborghini has to offer.

Lotus has built its name on phenomenal suspension setups. So much so, in fact, that other big-name manufacturers come to the company to work out the kinks in their own designs. As a result, it has a stable of world-class-handling sports cars. The company builds lightweight, relatively low-power machines capable of running down cars costing hundreds of thousands of dollars more. Seems like the perfect way to get into the supercar world without paying supercar prices, right?

It’s true the Japanese engines that Lotus uses offer both fuel efficiency and reliability, and you can score an Elise for less than you'd plunk down for a fairly standard Lincoln Navigator (the price for an Elise runs from $47,250 to $54,990). When you consider the performance and iconic styling that money buys, it could be enough to persuade some people to put up with a bare-bones interior and a glaring lack of amenities. At the very least you'd certainly arrive at work less in need of a cup of coffee after your morning drive.

The truth, however, is that Lotus machines are mostly designed as weekend track warriors, not commuters. The cabins are more than bare-bones, they're unforgiving -- which also goes for the stiff springs and the feel-every-bump ride. Despite the world-class handling and a more fun drive than almost anything you'd get for the money, the fact is that most people wouldn't be willing to put up with such spartan accommodations day in and day out, year after year -- especially when your road-hugging driving machine is stuck sitting in a line of traffic on I-95.

Could the 2010 Evora change all that? The car is considerably heavier than its older siblings, which could make for a more comfortable overall drive, but no Lotus product is a slouch when it comes time to lay down on a local track. We’ll let you know when we get some time behind the wheel.

(Photo courtesy of Lotus.)