Lotus Engineering has unveiled its long-awaited Versatile Vehicle Architecture (VVA). It says VVA will transform the ability of car makers to produce smaller volume models on a sophistcated, bespoke platform. Lotus reckons up to 50,000 vehicles can be made per year, including a 4x4 crossover, mid-engined supercar and rear-drive coupé and saloon.
The VVA is all-aluminium and combines conventional pressed aluminium panels with cast ‘corner nodes’ (shown in red) and extruded chassis rails (blue). Structural components for each ‘family member’ are arranged in different configurations around the ‘corner nodes’.
The structure uses similar construction techniques to Jaguar’s XJ chassis (right) and Lotus quotes production figures for the four variants that are remarkably close to Jaguar’s current volumes. Lotus has already worked on Aston-Martin’s alloy VH chassis.
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