According to its ad, today’s Nice Price or No Dice Esprit has 24,000 miles on the clock and already one engine rebuild under its belt. That might not bode well for future longevity, but we’ll still have to decide if its price makes it a short-term bargain.
Several years ago—pre-pandemic, in fact—I was tasked to judge the Jaguar class at the Dana Point Concours. Over lunch, one of my co-judges explained to me that he had gotten into Jags after the market for his previous passion, Ford Model As, had bottomed out. He was (and remains) a good bit older than I, and explained that the reason for the drop in interest was that people who had grown up with the cars were now dying off and the younger spate of enthusiasts lacked that connection. That was an epiphany moment for me as I suddenly realized the generational nature of car collecting.
Such a thought could influence the decision regarding the 1960 Imperial Crown Southampton coupe we looked at last Friday, and its $23,500 price tag. How many of us grew up around extravagant cars like that Imperial? I know, I didn’t. Regardless of age, we all seemed to appreciate the massive Mopar at that asking price, giving it a solid 65% Nice Price win.
Longest-lived Lotus
When you consider the longest-lived car or truck model, some simply seem evergreen. Chevrolet offers two of these: the Corvette, which has been around since 1953, and the Suburban, which has been a nameplate for the Bowtie Brand for an astounding ninety years. The one caveat to those statistics is that neither the Corvette nor the Suburban has remained the same over those years. Aside from the nameplate and the type of people who buy them, each has undergone significant changes across multiple models.
While not as long-lived as either Chevy, the Lotus Esprit is notable for its quarter-century production run, as, even though it was massaged and modified over that time, it remained substantially the same car throughout. This 1997 Lotus Esprit twin-turbo V8 was built just five years before the model’s demise and could be considered the ultimate expression of the line. This is also one of the last cars sold in the U.S. to have pop-up headlamps, adding to the aura of it being a vestige of a past era.
Homegrown V8
For the longest time, Lotus sold road cars as a means to fund its racing endeavors. Another way the company generated cash was through the sale of engineering services to other carmakers. Lotus’ engineering chops are legendary, but that didn’t quell the surprise in the mid-1990s that the small cottage car maker had developed its own V8 engine and was dropping it into the formerly four-cylinder-only Esprit.
The mid-engine Esprit was the only model to carry the V8, and once it went out of production, so too did the mill.
An all-alloy over-square design built for high revs, the 3505 cc engine featured a flat-plane crank and one turbocharger per bank. While capable of hitting 500 horsepower, concerns about the lifespan of the Esprit’s Renault-sourced five-speed manual gearbox led Lotus to detune the engine to 350 horsepower.
According to the ad, this car has 24,000 miles on the clock and has a rebuild of both the engine and the turbos in the books just 500 miles back. The rebuild is claimed to be “full performance” and the work is said to be thoroughly documented.
Needs nothing
A peek under the engine cover reveals everything to be in place, with nothing out of order or otherwise alarming. The rest of the car appears similarly clean and original, with some exceptions. The seller claims the car to be in excellent shape and to “need nothing,” although the front-quarter picture in the ad shows a scrape along the corner of the bumper, and there is some gouging on the rim of the one wheel shown, likely caused by a ham-fisted tire mounter. Those tires, by the way, are Michelins, so there was no cheaping out there.
Another thing to note while we’re on the outside is the rear panel. That has a quartet of round tail lamps—the same ones used on the later Lotus Elise. That design came on the 2002 and later Esprits and has been added here. Originally, this car would have had a panel that integrated tail lamps from the Toyota AE86 Corolla liftback.
Inside, the cabin is awash in biscuit-died leather and cramped quarters. A Momo steering wheel with a Lotus center has been fitted along with a GReddy Profec boost control on the dash. Everything else appears to be stock and in acceptable condition, albeit a hodgepodge of parts from other carmakers.
Rule Britannia
A clean title ties the bow on this Esprit’s wrapping, and that brings us to our present task of determining whether or not this Esprit V8 is worth the $59,500 the seller asks for its sale. They do note the car’s rarity in the ad, and that’s accurate as this is one of only 1,237 non-GT V8s built. Does that make it desirable, however? It’s true that more of us have grown up during the Esprit’s reign than have done so under that of last Friday’s Imperial, so the appeal is likely greater.
What do you say? Is this Esprit V8 worth $59,900 as it’s presented in its ad? Or does that price have you refusing to assume the Lotus position?
You decide!
Nice Price or No Dice:
Denver, Colorado, Craigslist, or go here if the ad disappears.
H/T to Jerry Cleveland for the hookup!
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