The Lotus Esprit was first launched in 1975 at the Paris Motor Show. It succeeded the Lotus Europa and became the flagship road car for the company at a time Lotus began dipping its toes into the modern supercar market. The Esprit's production ended in 2004, but it remains a pretty scarce car.
It was a unique-looking sports car during its era and still makes an impression on the road today with its two unique designs that evolved over the years. The initial models - Series 1 Esprits - could sprint from 0 to 60 mph in 8 only seconds and had a top speed of about 133 mph without using a V-shaped engine. Lotus is developing an all-new hybrid Esprit sports car these days, but the original Lotus Esprit remains special even though it lacked the name recognition of a Ferrari, Porsche, or Lamborghini.
10 Had 2 Exotic Design Styles By Legendary Designers
The Esprit had two legendary designs that contributed to its exotic looks, each by a different designer. The first "folded-paper designs" from 1976 used for the S1, S2, S3 Esprits were by Giorgetto Giugiaro — a famous Italian supercar designer. He was famous for designing the Lamborghini Calà, Maserati Spyder and Ghibli, De Tomaso Mangusta, Alfa Romeo 105/115 Series Coupés, BMW M1s, and Ferrari GG50s of his era. His Lotus Esprit design had a wedge shape with sharp angles — a hot style in the '70s.
From the 1988 model year, the Esprit got restyled by Peter Steven, an English car designer who also worked on the McLaren F1 supercar. The new design featured astounding two-tone paintwork, more curvy and crisp angles, which were the trend for modern car designs in the '90s. After this, Lotus dropped the Series naming style for internal codes like X180. Of all the Lotus Esprits produced, i.e., around 10,675, 5,829 were designed by Giugiaro while 4,846 were by Peter Steven.
9 In The Movies
A Lotus Esprit S1 dubbed Wet Nellie got featured in the 1977 James Bond Series blockbuster Hollywood movie - "The Spy Who Loved Me." Roger Moore (acting as Agent 007) used it as a getaway vehicle to elude a helicopter. The most memorable scene from the movie was when he drove his Esprit into the sea, and it transformed into a submarine. This placement in the film wowed many and turned the Esprit into an in-demand car. The exact Lotus Esprit used in the movie finally ended up in the hands of Elon Musk for $997,000
In another film, the 1990 American romantic comedy titled "Pretty Woman," Richard Gere used the Lotus Esprit to pick up Julia Roberts. Notably, the Esprit wasn't the first car of choice for the film; this placement opportunity came because Ferrari and Porsche declined the use of their vehicles in a movie linked to prostitution.
8 It Helped Lotus Join The Exotic Cars League
Before the Lotus Esprit came out, Lotus had a bit of experience making fast cars but was only hugely popular for their affordable enthusiast cars. Colin Chapman wanted the company to join the prestigious and high-performance car market dominated by the likes of Porsche and Ferrari.
With a tired product line having cars like Lotus Elan and Lotus Europe, which had been around for an extended period, the plan was to come out with a supercar that would take on marquees from other European exotic car makers. With the help of Giorgetto Giugiaro's design and the car becoming a hit after getting featured in "The Spy Who Loved Me." Movie, orders spiked so much that some buyers got put on a 3-year waiting list. Lotus cars finally had the allure of cars from its competitors.
7 Extremely Lightweight
"Adding power makes you faster on the straights; subtracting weight makes you faster everywhere" was a famous phrase by Colin Chapman — a man who was obsessed with minimalism and lightness in car production. He made Lotus recognized globally as the leading manufacturer of lightweight sports cars that had outstanding handling. That's why Lotus cars like the Elise and Elan always feature on lists of the lightest production cars available.
The Lotus Esprit was not different; it followed the same philosophy and had a curb weight of only 1,984 lb (900 kg). Lighter cars need less power to get propelled, they stop faster, suffer less tire and brake wear, corner harder, and are very fuel-efficient. Such qualities made the Espirit have nimble handling making it great for those looking to eat up miles fast and handle hilly and winding roads gracefully.
6 Fiberglass Body
Today, the materials of choice when aiming to create an exotic-looking car that's lightweight and reliable are mostly carbon fiber and aluminum. But when the Esprit got produced, nothing could beat the appeal and weight of fiberglass, even though the material required lots of man-hours. Fiberglass, being rust-free, light, relatively rigid, and having low tooling costs, made it dearly loved by British sports car manufacturers.
Despite the Esprit being fiberglass-bodied, it got built around a steel backbone chassis. The main drawback of using fiberglass, as Lotus Esprits owners came to find out later, was that it's more prone to cracking and breaking easily upon impact, which causes cosmetic issues. This is unlike metallic materials, which instead deform or absorb impact energy.
5 Woeful Reliability
The Lotus Esprit was and still is infamous for poor reliability. But it wasn't an outlier as most vintage British sports cars of the time looked gorgeous but had the same characteristics making owners incur almost similar recurring repair bills. Most issues come from its steel frame that's prone to rust, poor build quality resulting in tatty-looking interiors, and faulty car mechanics. To add on, most of the car's wiring cannot be depended on; luckily, it wasn't an electric car.
The good news is that Lotus Esprits were much cheaper to repair than luxury marques from the same era. Moreover, it had an unrivaled mechanical simplicity for a supercar. A mechanic of average ability could quickly fix it provided he did a bit of research, was positive, and allergic to bodge-job repairs. Those that bought the latest iterations got Esprits that score better in reliability (when well-cared for) vs. the early fragile Esprits
4 Very Affordable Classic Supercar
Car collectors with wishlists full of Ferraris, Lamborghinis, and Porsches from the '70s, '80s, and '90s know such cars continue to be fearsomely expensive, and prices rise every year — but not the Lotus Esprit. Despite being rare, it is relatively attainable for the average enthusiast. Provided one is ready to shun brand bias and has a budget of over $15,000, they can own a supercar in the form of a Lotus Esprit.
A word of caution: the cheaper the Lotus Esprit, the more likely it has dubious running quality and reliability. That's right, some Esprits have sold for as little as $10,000 in auctions. Those hovering around the $40,000 mark and from the '90s have the best value proposition because of better build quality, more power, and reliability. 1980's model Esprits have prices that have remained relatively flat, but for the original Giugiaro S1 to S3 series, buyers find themselves forking out more each year.
3 The Interior
The Esprits interior was shockingly nice and made to be very roomy for comfortable driving over long distances. The interior was primarily upholstered in leather, but some sections featured suede. Inside, most components are driver-focused.
Early Esprits had a Momo steering wheel; power steering only got installed in the S4 series Esprits and later models. The main concerns with most Esprits interiors are; first, you get a tattered look very fast when the interior gets exposed to too much sunlight. Second, with its lowly-fitted seats and a raised rear wing, rear visibility is almost non-existent.
2 Tested And Endorsed By A Sitting Prime Minister
A factor that influences the selling price of a car that gets rarely mentioned is its heritage – this relates to who owned and drove the car previously. If it's a high-profile person, the value of the car shoots up. Consider the metallic Silver Diamond Lotus Esprit with a 4-cylinder engine (213hp) that was the personal car of Lotus Founder — Colin Chapman (until he passed away in 1982). It is pretty expensive because of its heritage. It got driven by the then U.K. Prime Minister Margret Thatcher and has since received a Lotus Certificate of Provenance.
At the time, Lotus needed a "marketing" boost and invited Margret Thatcher to their Hethel-based factory on August 5, 1981. Unfortunately, she couldn't make it, but Lotus brought the controversial Lotus 88 Formula 1 car and an Esprit to the Norwich Airport as props to represent its racing and road divisions. The "Iron Lady" was a sports car fan and chose to test drive the Lotus Esprit around the airport's private roads. She was so impressed and was quoted having said, "I was tempted to drive away in it."
1 Completely Hand-Built
Lotus is a manufacturer committed to 'minimalism.' The company uses very few but strong components from different suppliers for its sports cars. Each Lotus Esprit that rolled off the company's Hethel-based production line in England got entirely built by hand with 21 people on the assembly line. Each car took an estimated 584 man-hours to assemble.
The production line remained pretty much unchanged from 1976 to when 2004 when production ceased. Because multiple people worked on a single Esprit, and there were multiple assembly lines, this allowed one Esprit car to be finished and tested within a single business day.