Vehicle Description
Vehicle to be offered for Auction sale WITHOUT RESERVE and SOLD to the highest bidder January 19th - 22nd, 2017 at Russo and Steele's 17th Annual Scottsdale Arizona Auction at the Salt River Fields at Talking Stick. Please contact us for more information.
Designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro and his ItalDesign firm as a styling exercise and first shown at Turin in 1972, the Esprit was developed by British F1 racing powerhouse Lotus and unveiled in near-production form during 1974 with first deliveries in 1976. While its stunning shape stole headlines, the Esprit was in fact a technological masterpiece. Initially powered by the Lotus-designed Type 907 16-valve, DOHC four-cylinder engine, the Esprit also benefited from Lotus' famous "added lightness" approach in keeping with its championship-winning Formula 1 design principles. A steel backbone chassis, rack-and-pinion steering, and four-wheel disc brakes delivered razor-sharp dynamics. Relentlessly improved, refined, and upgraded, the Esprit was produced until February 20, 2004.
With its exotic styling and limited-production cachet, the Esprit was the perfect mount for Roger Moore as Her Majesty's Secret Agent 007 in 1977's The Spy Who Loved Me, followed by For Your Eyes Only in 1981. Performance climbed with an engine-displacement increase and turbocharging, aerodynamic aids, bigger wheels and tires, and chassis refinements, and the Esprit's purposeful character and sheer substance kept it atop the exotic-car world throughout its run. In 1991, the Esprit returned to the silver screen, this time as Jason Alexander's vehicle in the smash hit movie Pretty Woman, starring Hollywood icons Julia Roberts and Richard Gere.
An important development came in 1988 when Lotus showed off an exotic new restyling for the Esprit, penned by Peter Stevens, who later designed the McLaren F1. In particular, this new design captivated the car world and heralded a patented process to create the new body, called the VARI (Vacuum Assisted Resin Injection), which also offered a high level of rigidity. This 1988 Lotus Esprit Turbo carried a list price of $62,500 plus select options including the wing-type rear spoiler and correct polished wheels - convex front and concave rear - which are blemish-free. The Esprit's mid-mounted HCPI engine features high compression and 4-valves per cylinder to generate 215 rated horsepower yielding quarter-mile times the same as Porsche's 911 Carrera, 14.1 seconds @ 99.6 mph.
The values of these exotic Lotus Esprits are on the rise and with only 387 Turbos produced for 1988, fewer than half in left-hand drive, they are rarer still in America today. An original Calypso Red example with only 46,000 miles, this highly collectible 1988 Lotus Esprit Turbo benefits from a full belt and fluid service rendering it ready for many more years of thrilling driving experiences.
