Lotus has announced that production has concluded for not one, but three legendary sports cars. The final examples of the Elise, Exige, and Evora, pictured here, were photographed together as they left the Hethel, UK factory.

The Elise in particular has had a phenomenal run since 1996. The Exige, essentially a fixed roof, hardcore version of the Elise, was introduced in 2000. The Evora arrived in 2009. Between all three, a total of 51,738 examples have been built, representing nearly half of the firm's total production in its entire 73-year history. Lotus has also built 9,715 sports cars for third-party clients like GM and Tesla.

The era of the Elise and Exige dates back so far, in fact, that they were originally built alongside the legendary Esprit towards the end of its own long life. Lotus now plans to dismantle the duo's assembly lines and replace them with entirely new, state-of-the-art equipment. There are now plenty of Emira orders to fill.

Production of the all-new Emira is due to get underway this spring and Lotus aims to build 5,000 units annually. Final Emira prototype testing remains underway and will be completed by the time the snow melts. The final three examples of the Elise, Exige, and Evora will not be sold. Instead, they're heading directly to the company's heritage collection.

The last Elise Sport 240 Final Edition (No. 35,124) is finished in yellow, the last Exige Cup 430 Final Edition (No. 10,497) wears Heritage Racing Green, and the final Evora, a GT430 Sport finished in Dark Metallic Grey, is number 6,117 in the production count.

"First of all, I would like to thank the Lotus team who have worked on the Elise, Exige and Evora over the years and who are now transferring to Emira and Evija manufacturing," said Matt Windle, managing director of Lotus.

"I would also like to convey enormous gratitude to all the customers of the Elise, Exige and Evora over the last 26 years for their passion, enthusiasm and support. These customers have given our 'three Es' true cult status - usually reserved for long-out-of-production classics. As we say farewell to the last few cars, we look forward to the Emira and Evija in the all-new factories at Hethel and sub-assembly facilities in Norwich, which introduce greater efficiencies and automation, higher quality and flexibility and the hugely exciting next chapter in our Vision80 strategy."