Lotus Esprit - Ultimate Review - Is Jeremy Clarkson on Top Gear right

No way that is not him .

Hi , gentlemen .

The Lotus Esri designed by a specialist small British car making company .

And that is a byword for reliability and motoring pleasure .

We know that some say that this stands for lots of trouble .

Hi , everybody .

You have heard Jeremy talking the lotus down but is it really so bad today ?

I want to have a detailed look at my 1995 Lotus Pre two or four .

I want to check all the facts and want to have a look at all strange details .

But also I want to show you some short clips from movies starring the Lotus and also check out more comments of Jeremy James and Richard about the , I hope you enjoyed the tour .

The original of 1975 was a design .

Everyone knows that , of course .

And in 1987 it got a major restyle which was done by Peter Stevens , a UK designer who also did the design for the mclaren F one .

Yeah .

And then there was a smaller face lift in 1993 by another UK designer called Julian Thompson , which resulted in the SPS four .

My car is such an SPS four which was produced between 1993 and 96 in just 622 units before the more powerful but less reliable V eight engine arrived in 1996 .

Uh So what are the key facts of the SPS four ?

There were two slightly different four cylinder turbocharged engines depending on the market where the lotus was sold .

More common is the 2.2 liter engine with 264 horsepower .

But for some markets also offered a two liter engine with 243 horsepower .

The reason was a higher tax on engines bigger than two liters .

For example , in Italy performance for both models is quite good , especially due to the modest weight , 0 to 60 takes a little bit under five seconds , which is Ferrari Testa territory in the eighties .

And the tester also had 12 cylinders .

Top speed is 265 kilometers per hour or 165 MPH , which is similar to a portion 9 11 of the time handling of course is very good as you would expect from a lotus .

Some testers complained about the Renault gearbox , but the only thing that I dislike a little bit are the brakes which which I think could be a little bit more precise is the lotus as pretty comfortable .

Yes , absolutely .

I think so .

Something that you would not expect , but for everyday use , there is another drawback that , that's ground clearance .

I am always badly afraid of steep ramps at parking garages or anything like that , which can easily uh develop into impossible barriers .

Jeremy Clarkson tested an SPS four in the early nineties on top gear and he was full of grace .

Have a look , you know , I'm going to like this car quite apart from the power and the handling and that pretty , pretty body .

I like the fact that James Bond , Sharon Stone and Julia Roberts have all used one .

It's a sort of automotive Hollywood Starlet .

And then there's the fact it's a lotus and that means it has some cred , you get home at night and say , shall we go out in the lotus tonight ?

It has a certain ring to it .

You know , I really do like this car when you've learned how to drive this car , it absolutely flies .

And then Richard Hammond tested a secondhand S3 for Men and Motors and he was also very excited .

This is the clip , no doubt about it .

You're driving something special behind the wheel of this thing .

Surprisingly , despite the narrow apertures , visibility is pretty good .

I can see out quite well , but who cares ?

People can see me .

That's what matters .

Look at me in my suit .

Well , and then there was the Epic Patagonia special on top gear where James May Lotus Spri , in this case , a V eight proved to be the most reliable car even way beyond its comfort zone , but have a short look at my favorite parts of their incredible journey .

How far is it ?

Mile 1600 miles in the Lotus is the mous abbreviate , a good choice for a 1600 mile drive through Patagonia .

In all honesty .

No .

A , the Clarkson are absolutely right .

The lotus is a risk .

Yes .

This came from North .

This was built by Blokes .

Of course , it's fragile , but that's what makes it interesting .

And it's the best looking and it's the fastest and it's the Reddest .

Hm .

Oh .

Oh .

Ah , kill me quite .

Are you telling me that if you drive from Argentina to Chile ?

This is the main road because I don't believe it here .

The Lotus was way out of its comfort zone .

Oh , but amazingly it made it , I am absolutely staggered and that lotus is still working absolutely properly staggered .

Two .

The track led us into a primordial swamp .

Jeremy and I were now completely beached .

However , this car is incredible .

I mean , it's truly incredible if I showed you a picture of this and said , what's that good for , you'd say ?

Oh , I wouldn't want to take that into a supermarket , car park .

They've got speed hubs right here comes Norfolk to the rescue .

Yes , he's done it .

He's faced the peril and one , in fact , and amazingly so was HMS Norfolk .

Look at that Lotus .

It's been through a swamp .

It's been through a wood and it's still working .

Quite a lot of me is rooting for that little red Supercar .

It's just incredibly who knew it was the world's best off road car who knew that it's built to a higher standard than Alexa's .

Well , I think top gear has proved that I am too chicken hearted in terms of ground clearance and parking garage ramps so far , we have had a look at top gear , but the was also a famous movie car .

Of course , I love James Bond movies and I adore the white Spri as one in the spy who loves me .

But I want to skip it here because I want to focus on the late pris .

These later Espers featured at least in two famous movies .

Sharon Stone drove a Black Espy and Basic Instinct .

This one and of course , Richard Gere and Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman Edward .

Uh Are you familiar with a stick shift ?

You drive a Yeah .

Yeah .

Listen .

All right .

Just , just be ginger with it .

Don't , it's a new car , don't do it .

Ok .

I can do it .

Oh yo .

Oh yo , catch this .

Wait a minute .

That's a load of , of free .

Have a hot car .

It's a little , a little temperamental man .

This baby must corner like it's on rails .

I beg your pardon ?

You know , I think you left your transmission back there .

You're not shifting , right ?

This is a standard , standard H like I know what that means .

Have you ever driven a lotus .

You're gonna start right now .

Fasten your seat belt .

I am taking you for the ride of your life .

I'm gonna show you what this car can really do .

Are you ready ?

I am ready .

Hang on .

Ok .

Here we go .

Maybe an interesting side effect .

Ferrari and Porsche declined the product placement opportunity in this movie because both companies did not want to be associated with prostitutes .

Now , let's have a look at some of the details of the S four .

It's easy to distinguish an S four because it has this kind of odd spoiler or at least uh spoiler in a very odd position .

But uh the reason for that , I will show you a little bit later .

Maybe I first give the word to Jeremy .

The doors on this model are from a Vauxhall Cavalier .

Correct .

Door mirrors are from a Cron , don't touch it .

The gearbox in this is from a Renault 25 .

Correct because that was the best gearbox they could find or the only one that would fit it was the only one that would fit .

I can add that the back lights are from a Toyota Corolla and the headlight motors are also Toyota parts .

But is that really bad ?

I mean , no , it keeps the repair costs down .

So I would say it's more of a positive effect .

It's an eighties sports car .

So of course , it needed pop up headlights to be cool and in this case even better , pop up double headlights and they were operated by this button .

Here , it is a bit difficult to get in and out of the car .

But in fact , you get used to that as well .

A bit quirky is the position of the hand brake lever here on the left side .

I mean , you pull it up and it's engaged , but then you can move it down and it is still engaged .

Without this trick , the lever would block the access in and out of the car .

If you want to disengage the hand brake , push the button , pull it up , then down .

Again .

This procedure is a little bit confusing , but in fact , you get used to it , but just from the position of the lever , you don't know if the handbrake is engaged or disengaged for this information .

You need to check the small red warning light in the dashboard .

Let's have a look at the interior .

They are , in fact , not so many buttons and controls , but I will show you now all of them in detail .

So you have here the button for the electric mirrors .

Then here you have the parking lights , the main headlights and the heating for the back screen in the instrument cluster .

You have the speed and the Tale of course .

And um you have on the left hand side , the oil temperature and the oil pressure and on the right hand side , fuel and water , these buttons Here on the right hand side are hazard lights and fog lights back and rear below the radio .

You have the climate control and then there are just these two buttons for the electric windows and in the center armrest .

When you open net , you find a very small storage area and then this interesting button with the two arrows .

That's the release for the filler camp .

And why are there two errors ?

It's because you can fill up from both sides .

It's one in the same tank , but two filler caps .

And I think a very convenient solution during filming this video , I noticed that there is one more button , this one here , which honestly , I didn't know it existed , so I haven't seen it in three years of ownership of my car because I always thought that's just some kind of a plastic screw or something like that .

But now I noticed it's a functional button and this one is to override the safety mechanism of the electric windows .

So if you press the button of the electric windows , it goes up and it detects an obstacle , it would stop and uh go back down .

But uh maybe in some conditions when there is eyes on the windows or something like that , you just want them to go up and then you can press this button here .

And that's also the reason why it has , if you really look very closely , you can see there is um , the ice symbol on it .

So you press this button , the override button and the button for the electric window and it goes up with full power and uh doesn't stop for any safety reasons .

So really funny after three years of ownership , I can still find something new in my car .

The manual gearbox has a standard H shift pattern and it is as we have heard before from a Renault 25 .

And what about visibility ?

In fact , not so bad .

I mean , you said very low , you see traffic from a different angle but visibility is not bad .

Even backside , visibility is ok .

OK .

Due to the fact that Lotus fitted the big spoiler in this oddly high position .

So the spoiler doesn't block the few but more you look through it below .

So it's quite clever idea to do that .

Even if a lot of people think what a weird position to put a spoiler .

My S P has the big glass Taga roof which can be either opened a little bit like that .

So yeah , open this lever here and this lever here and then you need two hands to push it up like that or it can be removed completely and stored in the boot .

And by the way , the boot is opened by this lever here and it's quite spacey for a mid entrance sports car .

So you can easily store the luggage for a weekend trip here .

When the boot is open , you also have access to the engine .

The engine is below this plastic cover here , got something to remove like that .

If you might wonder what is under the front hood , there is a lever somewhere down here , but it's really difficult to access that one .

Here .

It is this one here and here in the front is no space for luggage , but there is just the spare tire and some technical equipment .

Ok .

So now we have to come to a conclusion is lotus , lots of trouble , usually serious , like Jeremy said in the beginning .

No , definitely , I would not agree .

I have owned it now for three years and I have covered about 6000 kilometer with it .

And in these three years , I just had two minor problems that needed attention .

So one was a headlight motor that failed and uh got a second hand one .

It's anyway , it's a Toyota spare part .

So I paid €120 for this second hand motor for the headlights .

And uh the second problem is the pressure tank for the anti lock breaking system .

I'm not very sure if that's the correct English technical word for that .

Well , this is the new one installed and this is the old one that had to be replaced and that's a spare part that was still available new and uh cost it uh €230 .

So I spent in total in three years time , just €350 for two repairs .

And that's really not bad for a car like that .

I think this was the review about my Lotus S3 .

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It would be really great .

See you next time .