Lotus does not build many cars like the Lotus Esprit: a 2-door coupé with gasoline engine, built from 1976 to 2004 as the oil crises and the first emissions rules rewired the industry.
Where it came from
The Lotus Esprit is a sports car built by Lotus Cars from 1976 to 2004 at their Hethel, England factory. It has a rear mid-engine, rear-wheel-drive layout. Together with the Lotus Elise / Exige, it is one of Lotus' most long-lived models. The Esprit was among the first of the (near) straight-lined, hard-edge creased, and sometimes wedge-shaped, polygonal "folded paper" designs of the prolific, and highly successful Italian industrial and automotive designer Giorgetto Giugiaro. The Esprit's backbone chassis was later adapted to carry the body of the DeLorean car, another low-bodied, Giugiaro-drawn, sharp-creased, wedge-shaped sportscar design. In 1978, the first updates led to the series 2 and 2.2 L (134 cu in) engined Esprit S2.2, made until the 1982–1988 Series 3 and Turbo Esprit models, that used a 1980 Giugiaro designed aerodynamic and aesthetic restyling package.
The Lotus Esprit however, lived on through the 1990s, and into the 2000s. It received its first significant restyling by designer Peter Stevens, who also did styling on the McLaren F1. Stevens gave the Esprit overall softer lines and shapes, but the car did not get a new series number – it is instead often just called the 'Stevens Esprit', or by its project number, the X180, made from 1988 to 1994. In 1994, an official Series 4 Esprit, drawn by designer Julian Thomson, had a further rounded shape, especially the bumper sections and lower body of the car. Styling-wise, this became the most long-lived Esprit (1994–2004), only receiving its last changes, by Russell Carr in 2002. Over the years, the performance of
Under the skin
Under the skin sits gasoline engine. Kerb weight is 900 kg. The layout matters: the engine sits behind the driver and ahead of the rear axle, which puts the mass in the middle of the car and is why mid-engined cars change direction the way they do. The wheelbase is 2438 mm. These are manufacturer figures carried by Wikipedia and Wikidata, not road-test measurements.
In context
Where it sits in Lotus's history is not in doubt: the Lotus Europa came before it; it was built at Hethel, Norfolk, England, United Kingdom. On a showroom list of its day it stood against the Ford Fiesta, the BMW 7 Series, the BMW 3 Series. Nearby in the Lotus catalogue sit the Lotus 100T and the Lotus 101.
The money
MotorJury scores cars on the United States complaint and recall record, and the Lotus Esprit has none: too old, too rare, or never sold there. Its value today is a collector's question, decided by provenance and condition rather than by a class average.