Lotus at Geneva Motor Show 2008

As Lotus announced the £27,995 entry-level version of the 2-Eleven trackday car, using the normally-aspirated 190bhp version of the Toyota engine, project engineer Nick Adams spoke of type-approval rule changes which could affect sales of such cars for road use in Europe.   Already the 2-Eleven's SVA (single-vehicle approval) pack is proving popular. It makes the car road legal for UK use and includes the test itself. Similar schemes operate in some other countries, US excepted. But the EU is looking to change the rules, which may be bad news for the UK's band of low-volume carmakers who lack Lotus's resources.   'The problem has come about because people have been abusing the system,' said Adams. 'There have been far too many Japanese imports coming in under the current system. What is proposed is a Europe-wide low-volume type-approval system which will be more rigorous than the current SVA, which is little more than a kind of super-MOT and a check against construction-and-use regulations. It would involve probably one crash test.'   This, and the need to comply properly with emissions rules, would hit makers of cars such as the Rocket unless they were track-only. But in today's regulated world it has the makings of a sensible compromise which should allow the small carmakers to stay in business.