Lotus, Lotus, Lotus !!

Lotus, Lotus, Lotus !!

A recent copy of the Classic Car Weekly (pages 26-29 of Wednesday the 22nd of October edition) has focussed on the  " Wedge Shape " Lotus, which have gone on to become so collectable following the very successful Elan and Elan Plus 2S during the 1970's.

Colin Chapman's genius is the constant theme that ran through the article, which traces the history of these outstanding cars from their introduction in 1974, with the Lotus Elite. Later in 1976 the legendary Lotus Esprit was launched, with a great statement regarding this featuring within the article : " In 1976 the Esprit was launched into the market like an arrow from Colin Chapman's bow. It was a jump into the future, a revolutionary sporting concept car for the road ".

And indeed it was, with race car handling, and supercar performance to match after the Turbo Esprit was introduced, which propelled the car from 0-100 km/hr in just 5.5 seconds. The car also had a top speed of 243 km/hr (152 mph), which made it outstanding value for money at £18,200 (AU$33,272).

The other cars such as the Elite (launched in 1974) of course had four seats, meaning that Colin had moved into a whole new market, where he could compete against all of the much larger luxury 4 seater car manufacturers.

Naturally all of these Lotus's are rising in value sharply, with the Esprit V8 Twin Turbo becoming very, very difficult to obtain, and equally as pricey. The original V8 cars were scheduled to have 500 bhp from the all-Lotus designed engine, although this had to be reduced to avoid destroying the Renault/Citroen transmission.

Lotus...........one of the greatest marques in Supercars.