Lotus Esprit V8

The Esprit V8 used Lotus' self developed type 918 3.5 L twin turbo engine, in front of the same Renault transmission as before. Derek Bell developed an uprated gearbox that overcomes a lot of the gearbox problems with a much thicker single piece input shaft Power was up to 355 bhp (265 kW), however the capability of the 918 engine was limited by the fragility of the Renault transmission. Zero to sixty miles per hour came in under 5 seconds. Some examples of the engine are noted however to suffer from a leaking cylinder liner problem.

Alongside V8 models was produced the GT3, a turbocharged 4 cylinder car with a 2.0 L chargecooled, turbocharged engine as used in Italian market cars previously.

In 1998 the V8 range was split into SE and GT specifications, both cars with a much changed interior configuration, both offering similar performance with the SE being the more luxurious of the two.

The ultimate incarnation of the Esprit came in 1999 with the Sport 350. Only 50 were made, each offering 350 horsepower (as per the name) and various chassis and braking improvements. By this time the Esprit could reach 60 mph (100 km/h) in well under 5 seconds, and weighed 1300 kg (2866 lb) as a result of their hand laid fibreglass bodies.

Esprit production continued on until 2004, Lotus content on producing the Esprit with little development aside from minor cosmetic changes including a switch to four round tail lights in 2002. Over 28 years a total of 10,675 Esprits were produced.

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