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Watch the Lotus Esprit evolve from 1976 to 2004

Seeing a model as long-lived as the Lotus Esprit evolve over time generally requires some clever photography or graphical work, kind of like this. This video doesn't require any of that trickery, though, because it features every single model year of Espirt in one glorious row of awesome British cars.
Taken at the 2013 Lotus Festival at Brands Hatch in the UK, it features Esprits from 1976 all the way to its last model year in 2004. It really puts into perspective the slow evolution of the mid-engined, wedge-shaped Lotus, as it went from a very 1970s design to something decidedly more modern.
We've got the full video below, which starts with a red 1976 model, travels down the line to a silver 2004 Esprit, and then all the way back to the original. Take a look, and let us know what you think.

Lotus supposedly working up a new Elan, again

Geely's investment in Volvo, and giving Volvo the freedom to do what Volvo knows how to do, propelled the Swedish automaker to another level. This could be the year English automaker Lotus begins the same climb. Late last year, Bloomberg said Geely committed an initial $2 billion to the Lotus renaissance. That number was low, the Financial Times reporting Geely planned to invest billions over the next five years. In May this year, Lotus announced it was hiring 200 new engineers and opening a new engineering center to develop a new range of SUVs, GTs, and sedans that would expand consumer appeal to triple its current annual volume. Sports cars are a vital part of the new mix as well, Autocar citing Lotus insiders for a report that a new Elan convertible sports car has "a strong possibility of being revived in the next few years" as a nameplate.    Lotus made a splash about bringing back the Elan — along with a new Esprit, Eterne, Elise, Elite, and city car — at the 2010 Paris Motor Show. That was a very different Lotus, when Malaysian automaker Proton owned the English outfit and ex-Ferrari marketing honcho Dany Bahar manned the helm. In spite of promises of funding, the team at Hethel lurched through years of corporate drama and dire finances until Geely took over in 2017. The latest Elan whispers sketch a convertible targeting the Porsche 718 Boxster - Lotus in general has Porsche in its sights. The car pictured above is from the first re-animation of the Elan badge, from 1989 to 1995. A coming Elan would sit above the Elise in the lineup, with more space, amenities, and luxury, at the same time as it would focus on being the lightest and most agile in the segment. Before that arrives, however, Lotus needs to finish developing the sports car platform that will help carry the brand's new range for the next decade; The Lotus SUV uses Volvo's SPA architecture that carries the XC90 and XC60. CEO Phil Popham's Vision-80 program — which now seeks to grow annual volume not merely triple but six-fold to 10,000 cars by 2029 — will be centered around the multi-material architecture that replaces the Elise and Evora architectures presently employed. Due in two years, the rivet-bonded "alloy-core" chassis will likely include carbon fiber and other advanced materials.

Lotus to add 2 new sports cars by 2020, SUV by 2022

British sports carmaker Lotus will bring two new sports cars in 2020 with an SUV right behind them in 2021 or '22, becoming the brand's first all-new vehicles since it began production of the Evora back in 2009.CAR Magazine reports the news in an interview with Lotus CEO Jean-Marc Gales. Of the two cars, he said only that one will be a replacement for an existing car, with the other likely to be a limited-edition, track-focused car slotted above the Evora. It'll base the cheaper of the two on an evolution of Lotus' bonded aluminum chassis, while the other will get a new carbon-fiber chassis and become the brand's new performance flagship. Chinese automaker Geely, which also owns Volvo, purchased a majority ownership stake in Lotus last year, adding what's hoped to be a measure of stability and badly needed investment to years of ownership changes and endless re-iterations of existing models. With Geely money backing the operation, it's likely these two vehicles will be more likely to come to fruition than the last batch of ambitious concepts from the company, which included a new Esprit, Elite, and Elan. Those never progressed beyond the concept stage. The company soon after revealed the Evora GT430 as its fastest, most-powerful road car to date, with a 0-to-60 time of 3.7 seconds, and it put the same supercharged V6 in the Exige to bump up horsepower to 430 and increase torque to 325 pound-feet. Meanwhile, Lotus is ending production of the 3-Eleven this year, and Gales has previously said the company was developing a new Elise for 2020, so it's likely that's one of the new cars. The Elise and Exige were withdrawn from the U.S. back in 2011. The new vehicles will benefit from technology from Geely's network of suppliers, and Geely is also apparently hiring new Lotus staff and investing "millions" in Lotus' production lines. Lotus said its sales were way up in both Europe and the U.S. during its last fiscal year, and while the brand still lost money it narrowed its financial losses and said it expected to be profitable before tax for the current fiscal year.Related Video: