By the end of the 20th century, the Lotus Esprit family had been on sale for nearly 25 years, which is a measure of the car’s technical worth and of the original style which had been produced for Lotus by the Italian genius, Giorgetto Giugiaro. Although Lotus smoothed out the style in 1987 (to what is often known as the ‘X180’ shape), the car’s character was not lost.
The mid-engined Esprit was designed as a replacement, but altogether larger, faster and more specialised, for the Europa, which had been Lotus’s first mid-engined road car. Like the Europa, the Esprit was a two-seater with a tiny cabin mounted on a folded steel backbone chassis frame, with Lotus’s own newly designed 16-valve twin-cam 2-litre engine positioned behind the cabin. The rolling chassis was wrapped in a fibreglass body full of sharp edges and planes, unmistakably from the hand of Giugiaro himself. None but a company already steeped in motor racing could ever have produced a car whose chassis promised so much, and delivered it all with such aplomb.
The first Esprits were delivered in 1976 and were cars which took time to mature, first gaining reliability and longevity, then larger engines, and finally a turbocharged version of the power unit. In 1987, with the established design well past its tenth birthday, Lotus used its in-house stylists to produce the more rounded ‘X180’ shape which would continue only lightly modified, to the end of the century. |
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In turbocharged SE form, the revised Esprit was good for around 160 mph, but there still seemed to be a demand for more performance, so in 1996 the long-rumoured Lotus 3.5-litre V8 engine, with 349 bhp, was finally introduced, making it a 175 mph car. Along the way, a whole variety of Esprit Turbos were built, some in very limited quantities, the most powerful of all being the 302 bhp variety, which traded refinement for sheer performance.
Each and every Esprit was a sports coupé with the accent on sports, majoring on function rather than convenience, for the cabin was always a snug fit for only two people, luggage space was small, and noise levels were always above average. Except that it needed a brave and expert driver to get the very best out of the chassis, no-one ever complained about the Esprit’s handling, just as no-one ever seemed to find fault with the car’s style and character. By the end of the 1990s, the Esprit was selling only slowly, but there were still those drivers who would not swap its agility, small size, and sheer appeal for any other.
With the established Esprit design well-past its tenth birthday, Lotus produced the more rounded X180 shape which continued to the end of the century.
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