Additional Information

Introduced in 1976, the Lotus Esprit is an instantly recognisable and iconic shape. With its mid-engine configuration, wedge shape, and excellent performance and handling, it has embarrassed more than a few ‘supercars’ over the years. And some starring roles on the silver screen didn’t do the Esprit any harm either – a couple of James Bond films and also ‘Pretty Woman’.

The original Esprit had a 4 cylinder naturally aspirated engine producing 160 bhp and performance figures of 0 – 60 mph in 6.8 seconds and 124 mph top speed. Over time it gained a turbo charger, a capacity increase and other tuning, and topped out at 302 bhp in the Esprit Sport 300 whose performance increased to 168 mph and 0 - 60 mph in 4.6 seconds.

And as supercars were meant to have large engines with lots of cylinders, Lotus decided a 3.5 litre V8 engine would be a good thing. The engine was a new one designed and built by Lotus and produced up to 350 bhp (it could have been greater but there were question marks over the ability of the transmission to handle more power). 1n 1996 the first version of the Esprit V8 was launched and as might be expected, had even more performance than its 4 cylinder brethren.

In recent years, Esprit values have increased significantly and this has also brought the benefit of a new breed of owner who’ll invest in proper servicing and the renovation of tired looking examples (for a while, Esprits were cheap cars and as such suffered from being bought by people who could afford the car, but not necessarily the maintenance and other running costs).

If buying an Esprit, an excellent service history is vital. They are complex cars and can be expensive to fix if they've been neglected. But a well maintained and serviced Esprit should bring lots of fun and importantly, reliability.