Lotus has used the Geneva Motor Show to announce details of a new Luxury Touring Pack Option for the Lotus Europa S to make the car more attractive to the less committed driver; the driver who is used to "proper" trim and doesn't need to save every last kilo in the search for performance. This moves the Lotus Europa S from its almost semi-stripped out track day style to the more luxurious end of the spectrum.

The mainstay of the Luxury Touring Pack Option is a new, upmarket-looking interior comprising saddle tan leather, chocolate coloured leather and brown carpeting. The standard Europa S follows the pseudo-race car look with lightweight composite steering column shroud, dashboard top surface, instrument binnacle and sill covers. Specify the Luxury Touring Pack Option and these items and other surfaces in the interior come trimmed with four hides of soft high-grade leather in the aforementioned colours. Also adding to the luxury ambience are new supportive saddle tan and chocolate leather sports seats in a striped pattern. The composite passenger airbag cover has been trimmed in soft material; the interior package completed by the walnut and tulip wood gearknob (much nicer in real life than it sounds) and an engine start button.

The luggage compartment doesn't miss out on an upgrade either. The whole boot, including the battery cover, is trimmed with brown carpet. The inside of the tailgate is trimmed in saddle tan leather while luggage straps are included to prevent luggage from moving around under hard driving. This may be the luxury option, but the Europa S is still a car built to be driven hard. Finally, there is a saddle tan coloured leather oddment bag fitted to the luggage compartment.

So that everyone else knows you've gone the Luxury Touring Pack Option route, there are small giveaways outside. The rear and rear three-quarter glass is tinted, the front driving lamp surrounds are now body coloured and the rear light grille surrounds have been coloured silver.

For all this, Lotus claims that the Luxury Touring Pack Option adds very little weight to the Europa S and thus has minimal effect on performance. We sat in the luxury Europa S at the Geneva Show and look forward to checking out this claim for ourselves later this year. The Luxury Touring Pack Option will be available from next month.

Trevor Nicosia - 12 Mar 2007