Feast your eyes on the rakish new Elite from Lotus, scheduled for an official unveiling at the Paris Auto Show on September 30. This 2+2 front-mid-engine rear-wheel-drive sports car is about as far as you can go from Colin Chapman’s original. Slated to arrive in 2014, the Elite is expected to carry a price tag of around $180,000. Designed by the new Lotus styling team led by Donato Coco, the 181-in.-long coupe weighs in at 3700 lb. and features a retractable hardtop.

Power comes from a heavily revised Lexus 5.0-liter V-8 with an epicyclic hybrid gearbox with integrated electric motors and a front-mounted Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS). Power is rated at 542 bhp, or 611 bhp in the R-tuned version. Lotus predicts the Elite will hit 62 mph (100 km/h) in about 3.6 seconds. The 4-cam V-8 features both direct and port fuel injection with scavenged cylinder heads and a charge-cooled supercharger.

The Elite marks the first stage in a highly ambitious 10-year, $1.2 billion program that Lotus CEO Dany Bahar says will see Lotus challenge the likes of Aston Martin and Maserati by the middle of this decade, producing 7000–8000 cars per year. “Lotus can’t survive as a niche brand,” said Bahar. “It needs to be more appealing and has to exceed its rivals with better quality, class-leading emissions and performance at a better price.”