The Engine That Brought Lotus Into Their V8 Era

When Lotus added a V8 engine to its Giugiaro-designed Esprit sports car in 1996, the company acknowledged that the exotic sports car game had changed. Lotus could no longer compete having only four-cylinder engines, even if those cylinders were turbocharged and put out huge horsepower (301 in its 1994 version). As other exotics like Ferrari were offering at least eight cylinders and as many as 12, Lotus had to up the ante. The result was the twin-turbocharged 3.5-liter engine that would now find a home in Esprit's mid-engine chassis. 

The new Lotus V8 engine was designed to fit perfectly into the Esprit's engine bay. With only a 15% weight penalty over the four-cylinder, it put out 349 horsepower, just short of the Ferrari F355's 380 horses, but retained a power-to-weight advantage over its Italian counterpart. It was an all-aluminum 90-degree V8 with a flat plane crank, port fuel injection, and four valves per cylinder, running an 8:1 compression ratio and 10 psi of boost through its Garrett T025 turbochargers. The Lotus factory claimed that a 0-60 mph sprint took under 4.5 seconds, with a top speed of 175 mph. While more power was theoretically possible with the addition of intercoolers, the car's weak spot was its Renault-sourced gearbox, which was maxed out dealing with the non-intercooled V8's output.

The final decades of the 20th Century were somewhat chaotic for Lotus. The company's founder, Colin Chapman, died of a heart attack in December 1982 at the age of 54. In January 1986, General Motors — Lotus's largest engineering services client — took control of the company by purchasing 60% of its shares for $20 million. Seven years later, in 1993, GM sold Lotus to then-Bugatti owner, Romano Artioli. Artioli sold 80% of Lotus to Malaysian auto manufacturer, Proton, only three years later in 1996, just as the Esprit V8 went into production.

The era of the Lotus V8 was brief, compared to the 20-year run that the Esprit had as a four-cylinder sports car. Lotus made 1,237 examples of the Esprit V8 from 1996 through 2004. The variant soldiered on through some mechanical upgrades and one last facelift before production ended in 2004. Lotus was then sold to Chinese automaker Geely in 2008 and finally had the financial resources to develop a full line of vehicles, including several electrically-powered Lotuses like the Eletre.