The Name's Esprit: Lotus Esprit

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Graham

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On the RMS Blog: In 1975 Lotus launched a new car at the Paris Motor show after a few years of development from a concept car that was to revolutionise the brand and keep it well within the supercar segment at the time.

In fitting with tradition, all Lotus model names start with the letter E, and in 1975 this model was no different and was aptly named an Esprit. (Read the Full Article Here)



Read the Entire Article Here
 

svensktoppen

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Lovely cars, best Lotus bar the Elise :grinning: A friend of mine has one which was bought new in Canada by the family, and barely has delivery miles on it.
 

Blackie

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Good article! I did my mechanical apprenticeship at Harkness Nissan & Lotus in Ballymena from '95-'97 and I was there for the release of the v8 Esprit.

I was in awe of the various Lotus models I helped repair for the first few months and slowly began to tire of them because of the poor build quality that Graham mentioned.

They were literally built by spare parts bins of various companies with gearboxes from the old Renault 21's, switchgear from Vauxhall's, to lights from Rover and Toyota.

We regularly had Elise's in with problems ranging from sticking dump valves to interior trims falling off!

They were gorgeous to look at and when they were going they went well, would I own one (in the ideal world were I could afford it), not a chance!

It was one of those moments where you meet a childhood hero and are seriously let down by the reality of it, a bit like Ferrari when I worked at Charles hurst, but that's another story!
 
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