Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Carspotting: Lotus Esprit
Saw this engineless Esprit on Sunday. Thinking about writing it up for Hooniverse. Aside from our Swiss reader, does anyone else have any first-hand knowledge about this car? TIA.
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The Esprit initially came with a normally aspirated 4 cylinder engine. Lotus then switched to a Dodge sourced turbocharged 4 cylinder and finally an aluminum V8 engine. Ironically, the V8 had too much torque for the fragile gearbox so they had limit the power of those motors.
I had limited seat time in a later V8 powered version around the late 1990's (not mine but a friend of my wife's family) and I remember it was very quick. I still think it is a beautifully styled car. Not much help, I know but that is my only experience with the Esprit.
By the way, congratulations on writing for Hooniverse. I have been away for a week.
Self-editing here:
The Turbo was inhouse design not Dodge designed. I have been wrong about that for years (compliments of Wikipedia)
I bought this Turbo Esprit and am currently rebuilding the engine to get it back on the road. I just happened upon this picture and thought I'd check in. I'm a DeLorean owner and fan, which naturally got me interested in the Esprits which I've come to learn a great deal about so far during this project.
@delorenz: Welcome and congrats!
I wrote more about your car here:
http://hooniverse.com/2011/12/28/lotus-esprit-s3-turbo/
Please keep us posted on the progress of your Lotus.
Hi again. Just the other day I started it up and took it for a quick test drive. You can check out my progress on this Lotus Talk forum thread.
http://www.lotustalk.com/forums/f164/rebirth-84-turbo-esprit-110123/
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