Lotus has confirmed that it's working on an SUV to tackle the likes of the Porsche Macan, and it wants the car to be the best-handling in its class...

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Lotus is planning an SUV to fight the Maserati Levante and Porsche Macan, and these designs have just been filed with patent authorities. Billed from the off as the best-handling sports-SUV of the three, which would be some achievement, Lotus says it wants the car to go around bends “like nothing else in its segment.”

But just when you were thinking this might be a Lotus that’s actually all-new for once, we have to put a pin in that bubble. Geely-owned Lotus will take most of the new car’s key parts from stablemate Volvo. Lotus CEO Jean-Marc Gales – who’s now back behind the wheel – confirmed that the Lotess-you-vee will be built from parts nicked from beneath the XC60 and XC90, which share the same modular structure.

Reading between the lines that means four cylinders only for the premium soft-roader, but at least the ‘twin-engine’ T8 plug-in hybrid drivetrain coughs up 401bhp. You can expect that to increase once Lotus’ engineers have whipped their tuning tools out. The designs filed for patent applications look kinda Jaguar-ish from the front and surprisingly Ferrari-like from the back, although the bum-end styling clearly comes from the likes of the Exige and Evora.