Lotus Esprit

The Lotus Esprit was first introduced in 1972, at the Tuirn Motor Show. It was later released to the public in 1976. The Esprit was originally going to be named the "Kiwi" but like all the Lotus models before, and to continue the tradition, it had to start with the letter "E", so they named it the Esprit. Most people know the Esprit from the James Bond films "For Your Eyes Only" where that one bad guy decided to blow it up by smashing the window with a AK-47 and "The Spy Who Loved Me" where he drove the Esprit under water. There have been five generations of the Esprit with a sixth proposed at the 2010 Paris Auto Show, but today I'm going to talk about the third generation or S3 which is my favorite generation. The S3 went from 1981-1987 with two engine options: a 2.2L inline four and a special edition 2.2L inline four Turbocharged version. The non turbo engine produced 160hp at 5000rpm which for a car that only weighted 2,690lbs is a lot. Since it weighed so little the Esprit could go from 0-60mph in just 6.5 seconds and do 135mph. On the inside things where kinda funky, like a tape deck, on the celling. But those weird bits made it iconic and what I think is a great looking car. New the Esprit cost $17,256 which in 1981 is like $42,917 to use which is pretty awesome I have to say. Also the S3 Esprit got 23.2 mpg.