CL supports whatever implementation technique you want: hardware Lisp Machines with compiling into LAP, native compilers with a small runtime, bytecode compiler

CL supports whatever implementation technique you want: hardware Lisp Machines with compiling into LAP, native compilers with a small runtime, bytecode compilers - with OR without JITting native code, or simple AST interpreters. Some implementations even support multiple techniques at once (such as CMUCL which supports native compilation, bytecode compilation and interpretation, and direct interpretation). The standard doesn't prescribe implementation techniques.