Lotus cars will reopen their Hethel facility to the public on the 4th of April 2022.
Lotus are allowing members of the public to visit their plant once again after spending £100 million on renovations. Their tour programme was put on pause when works began at the Hethel facility back in November 2017.
About the Lotus Factory Tour
The Lotus Factory Tour begins at just £95 (roughly RM530) and is carried out between Monday and Thursday every week. Tour groups are limited to just 8 people and there are two groups daily at 10am and at 2pm. Each tour takes about 2 hours.
There will the option to upgrade to the Heritage Tour on selected days. This will include a visit to Classic Team Lotus, which is a showcase of historic Lotus race cars in a separate business unit across from the main Lotus facility.
The Lotus Factory Tour is open to anyone above the age of 10 with under 18s requiring an adult companion. All guests will receive a lanyard and pin badge.
Here’s the press release with more.
PRESS RELEASE
One of the world’s best-known performance car production facilities – Hethel, the home of Lotus since 1966 – is reopening to the public.
Factory tours of the iconic Norfolk site were paused in November 2017 as the £100 million redevelopment began. With the Emira, the last petrol-powered car from Lotus, now in production in an all-new, state-of-the-art assembly hall, they will restart.
The tour programme has been developed by the experiential team within the recently launched Lotus Advanced Performance division, and will begin on Monday 4 April. The booking platform is live now on www.lotuscars.com.
Guests will arrive and gather in the Retail Centre where refreshments will be available. There they will learn about the ongoing transformation of Lotus, and experience for themselves how all Lotus showrooms will look in the future.
Under the leadership of an expert guide, the story of Lotus at Hethel – past, present and future – will be brought to life. Guests will walk through older sections of the factory where, most recently, the Elise, Exige and Evora were built, before heading into the all-new Emira hall. They will see the new automated elements of the car’s production – a first for Lotus – as well as how much of the process remains ‘hands-on’.
Outside, the walking route will pass the dynamic test areas, including the famous 2.2-mile Hethel test track that has hosted some of the most famous names in the history of motorsport – Jim Clark, Mario Andretti, Emerson Fittipaldi, Ayrton Senna and countless others.
