2005 Lotus Elise - Clean Title - 57k Miles - on 2040-cars

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A restored Lotus Esprit adds lightness on Petrolicious

Spencer Canon believes the Lotus Esprit is a misunderstood sports car. The wedge-shaped exotics' reputation suggests they are incredibly temperamental, which means lots of expensive repairs. Canon sought to make sure his Lotus didn't suffer from such maladies, which was achieved thanks to a rebuild from a bare shell. The result of his hard work exudes 1980s style with some modern flair and even inspires Canon's career creating bicycles. The Lotus was a wreck when Canon bought it, and he spent months just stripping off the old paint. The car's condition prevented a complete restoration to original spec, so Canon decided to improve the coupe. He modified it in simple ways, such as replacing the power windows with simple pull straps. He also took inspiration from the color scheme on his company's bikes and painted the Lotus blue with a lighter stripe diagonally along the side. The completed sports car angers some purists for not being entirely authentic, but it's hard to argue with the results. Plus, Canon's happy, and nothing else really matters. Canon's Lotus has a rousing exhaust burble once he gets out of the city and out onto the open road. Take a ride with him in the latest video from Petrolicious to hear it yourself and to get a better understanding about the Esprit. Related Video:

Lotus admits its fancy London shop is a waste of money

Piccadilly in London is one of the most expensive shopping streets in the world. And right by where they filmed that awesome scene from American Werewolf in London, Lotus has a showroom. I wandered in last week. Handmade suit, posh watch, smart shoes. But the lack of interest from the sales staff made me think I was wearing a Kimi "Leave me alone I know what I'm doing" T-shirt. To the cognoscenti it's a bit confused. There is no separation between the Lotus F1 team and Lotus cars. Even though a friend at Lotus F1 once told me that the team has a closer relationship with Microsoft than it does with Lotus Cars. What makes this especially strange is that the F1 stuff is front and centre: overpriced caps, T-shirts, and team gear, with the cars playing second fiddle. Yet this is a store paid for by Cars. You have to wonder what the shop is going to sell next year when the Enstone F1 team drops the Lotus name to become Renault. But that is nothing to the wondering you start to do when you speak to the staff. On a previous visit I'd asked about the relationship between Lotus F1 and Lotus Cars, and the sales staff insisted that they were one and the same. A short time after that I spoke to Lotus CEO Jean-Marc Gales at an event where he'd been the guest speaker. He told me that moves were underway to fix the problem and that they would soon have staff in the shop that knew about the cars. So last week's return visit was depressing. In the back there is an Exige and an Elise. I asked the difference and the girl suggested that we look it up on the internet. She took a business card, I made my excuses and left. Daft really I might not have bought a car but I was seriously tempted by the GBP20 carbon fibre pen. My local dealer, Hexagon, called and mailed, but what was really telling, and bloody impressive, was the call from Hethel. I vented my disappointment with the Piccadilly store, and the Lotus man explained. And impressed. Normally you'd get some dreadful company line about how the shop wasn't for people like me, that it was all deliberate to avoid scaring people off and welcome new blood to the brand. But instead he was honest. He told me that the shop was a folly. That it was one of Dany Bahar's many expensive ideas. He signed a ten-year lease on the shop at a million pounds a year and they can't afford to run it. They did train up some good people but, as you can't pay people rural Norfolk salaries and expect them to work in Piccadilly, they left.

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: