9 instances when the British sports car maker lent its chassis and powertrain design chops to other brands.
Lotus has
struggled to reinvent itself for the last two decades, but it seems the current
rebirth might be the one that sticks. Backed by Geely, the British automaker
now has the capital to reinvest in its bread-and-butter sports cars, products
like the new Emira, while also expanding to decidedly un-Lotus
categories, like
SUVs, sedans and all-electric hypercars that weigh as much as planets. No, none
of those things are central to the brand’s identity, but they are the kinds of
vehicles you must build if you want to be a viable carmaker in this brave new world.
At this
exciting juncture in the company’s history, we thought it’d be fun to revisit
occasions when the Hethel-based manufacturer shared its engineering knowhow
with other marques. Much like Porsche, Lotus used to do that sort of
thing a lot. And, much like Porsche, these collaborations produced some pretty
unlikely results.
1990-95 Chevrolet Corvette ZR-1
As is
typical with these sorts of lists, we start with a gimme: the original Corvette
ZR-1. General Motors took Lotus, which was on the brink of financial ruin,
under its wing in 1986. It only held onto the company for seven years, after
which Lotus was pawned off to the same investment firm that owned Bugatti in
the early ’90s. This left the company at death’s door again, and you can rest
assured that the looming threat of financial collapse will be an ongoing theme
of this retrospective.
But in the
late ’80s, Lotus’ fortunes were looking up with an exciting, unlikely project.
GM wanted to make the C4 ’Vette into a true giant killer, so it tasked Lotus
with designing a new V8 with an aluminum block V8 for the car, called the LT5.
With four overhead camshafts and 32 valves, the LT5 produced more power — 375
horsepower in initial trim, 405 HP in later years — than many of its enthusiast
contemporaries of the day, from the Mustang SVT Cobra to the Acura NSX, to
Porsche’s 964 Turbo. Even the iconic Testarossa, with its formidable flat-12,
didn’t have much on the ZR-1 in terms of raw grunt. Lotus also breathed on the
ZR-1's Bilstein-designed
suspension, a
variant of which is said to have first appeared in the Porsche 959. Indeed, the ZR-1 was associated
with all the right names; it’s no wonder it went down a legend.
1980-93
Isuzu Impulse/Piazza
Both
generations of Isuzu’s coupe — the wedge-shaped original design seen in the
intro slide as well as the later, funkier fastback version shown here —
advertised Lotus-tuned suspensions. These models carried “Handling by Lotus”
badges ahead of their doors on their front-quarter panels (think Seat’s “System Porsche” branding, except there’s no record of Lotus
charging its GM stablemate for the privilege of using its name).
The first
Impulse — a Giorgetto Giugiaro-designed hatchback called the Piazza in Japan —
was built atop the same platform as the T-Series Chevette. The platform’s live
rear axle made handling, well, regrettable, which is where Lotus
came in. The British firm transformed the hatch’s cornering potential with
tweaks to the springs, dampers and anti-roll bars, extracting the most out of
the antiquated underpinnings.
Not all
first-gen Impulses were gifted with the Lotus setup. But when it came time for
the second act, Lotus’ intuition was incorporated in every car. The 1990-’93 Impulse
started as a coupe, and birthed hatchback and sedan variants before the end of
its run. Lotus engineers made recommendations on suspension geometry, the
location of the trailing arms and what size stabilizer bars to use; they also
firmed up the damping and dialed in stiffer spring rates, according to an old
print ad unearthed by Hemmings. And if that wasn’t enough, this
Impulse was offered with optional all-wheel drive, too. Those models had the coolest
decal badging of their time.
2013-20
Hyundai Genesis/Genesis G80
For a more
modern example of Lotus’ consultancy work, you needn’t look further than the
recently discontinued second-generation Hyundai Genesis, which became the
Genesis G80 in its final years. Lotus “remarkably” improved the Genesis’
dynamics by analyzing the car’s behavior, comparing it to segment rivals and
returning to the Korean automaker with a bunch of recommendations of how to
make the big sedan lighter on its feet. And that’s not me talking; those are
the words of former Hyundai exec Mike O’Brien.
Here’s how
O’Brien explained the working relationship between the two companies to Car and Driver, ahead of the Genesis’ North
American release:
We engaged
Lotus about a year ago. Their role was to help us do a better job of
communicating very subjective ideas to engineers and turn them into concrete
engineering change recommendations. They had several iterations of back and
forth with our chassis engineering team. The car was actually remarkably
improved after that work. [Lotus] could create data and analytics that would
show here’s what the car is doing, here’s what the competitors’ cars do, here’s
what we think you need to do based on your target buyer and what they want, and
then here’s a specific list of things from an engineering perspective to
achieve it. Our engineers made all the changes. It was a consultancy role.
Lotus did a lot of work in the area of steering, as well, to help us get
something that felt much more natural.
Sure
enough, our old friend Andrew Collins praised the G80's road manners in his review a few years back, saying it
walked “the perfect line between cushy and responsive that you want in a
cruiser like this.”
1991-92
Dodge Spirit R/T
Ignore the
Dodge Spirit R/T’s body color-matched wheels, and you’d never suspect the
innocuous-looking K-car derivative above had any sporting pretentions about it,
let alone that it’d been breathed on by Lotus. The Spirit R/T was defined by
its 2.2-liter turbocharged inline-four, which sent 224 HP to the front wheels.
That was an unconscionable power number for the day; hell, it’s still very
healthy for a compact sedan by modern standards. And it may never have happened
without Lotus’ guiding hand.
The British
sports car maker collaborated with Chrysler to design the Spirit R/T’s motor,
dubbed “Turbo III.” Lotus reportedly designed the heads, and with 16 valves,
the Turbo III was the first four-valve-per-cylinder engine Chrysler ever
manufactured, according to Allpar. The R/T was quoted with a 0-60
time just under six seconds, and a top speed just a tic past 140 mph. That was
good enough to make it the fastest sedan on sale in America during its short
run on the market from 1991 to ’92.
2000-05
Opel Speedster/Vauxhall VX220
That Opel
Speedster up there looks a little off, doesn’t it? That’s because it’s actually
the pre-production concept — the Speedster Preserial — that
arrived before the midengine convertible’s formal production run began in 2001.
The Speedster was sold as the Vauxhall VX220 in the United Kingdom, as part
of a symbiotic scheme between Lotus and
GM to secure
the former’s future, and give the latter a distinctive sports car in Europe for
the new millennium. Ironically, this transpired long after Lotus was
excommunicated from the GM family.
As you may
already know, the Speedster and VX220 were in many ways Series 2 Elises under
their fiberglass bodies, constructed atop the same aluminum tub. All three cars
were built at Lotus’ Hethel factory. There are key differences between the
Lotus-badged cars and their GM counterparts, most notably the engines they use,
their safety equipment, the aggressiveness of their suspension tuning and the
Speedster and VX220's inclusion of anti-lock brakes. If you’ve ever been
curious as to how differently these cars actually feel to drive, Australian
site Trade Unique
Cars has a
very informative writeup that compares them back-to-back.
1979-81
Talbot Sunbeam Lotus
Long before
the Dodge Spirit R/T, Chrysler and Lotus crossed paths on a very different kind
of car, for a very different kind of market. Chrysler Europe brought the
Sunbeam hatchback to the U.K. in 1977; it divested all its holdings to Peugeot
just two years later. The Sunbeam was quickly rebranded as a Talbot, and it was
around that time that Lotus’ tuned version of the car was first revealed to the
public. Chrysler had contracted Lotus to transform the rear-wheel-drive Sunbeam
into a rallying monster, and those efforts were rewarded when team Talbot
secured the 1981 WRC manufacturer’s title.
For the
roadgoing homologation version of the hot hatch, Lotus gave the Sunbeam its
slant-four engine developing 150 HP, chained to a five-speed ZF transmission. A
stiffer anti-roll bar and uprated Bilstein shocks improved handling. The result
was a meaner, rougher GTI with the drive wheels in the completely wrong place —
for a hot hatch, anyway. That’s the highly abridged version of the tale, but I
recommend checking out my friend Raph’s article on the
Sunbeam Lotus and its rally-winning ways if you’re curious to know more.
1990-92
Vauxhall Lotus Carlton/Opel Lotus Omega
You all
knew this one was coming. Lotus takes the Vauxhall Carlton/Opel Omega — a
completely competent albeit unexciting saloon, as the Brits call
them — and makes it faster than damn near anything this side of the Ferrari F40
or Porsche 959. Lotus achieved this with a number of enhancements, crucially by
twin-turbocharging Opel’s 3-liter straight-six, while also increasing displacement
to 3.6 liters. The six-speed box from the ZR-1 was lifted to do double duty in
the Carlton — Lotus knew it well, of course — while the limited-slip
differential from the Holden Commodore was thrown into the concoction.
Add in a
self-leveling suspension, wider tires and beefier brakes, and it’s little
wonder Lotus’ take on a totally unassuming GM appliance became the sleeper
sports sedan of the early ’90s. This special Carlton could wave off 60 mph in
almost five seconds flat, and nip at 180 mph. One particular gang in the
U.K. leaned on the car’s superb
performance to do crimes; surprising no one, the scoundrels were never caught.
2001-07 Aston Martin V12 Vanquish
The
original Vanquish owes its chassis to Lotus, who developed the coupe’s
aluminum-and-carbon fiber chassis, as well as its suspension system. Again,
this is a case where the details are murky, but an old Car and Driver
road test comparing
the then-new Vanquish to the already familiar Ferrari 550 Maranello makes the
cooperation between the two famed British names clear:
We know
that the ride and handling experts at Lotus were responsible for developing the
Vanquish chassis, which uses some suspension parts from the Jaguar S-type.
Lotus’s achievement has been to make a fast and powerful car with a firm
suspension that isn’t unsettled by bumps, and it never once bottomed out on our
travels. The ride is never jarring and is remarkably comfortable considering
its big 40-series tires.
About 14
years later, Aston Martin lured Lotus’ Matt Becker into the fold, following a
26-year career at the sports car maker. He’s served as Aston’s chief Vehicle
Attribute Engineer since, fine-tuning machines like the DB11 AMR until they handle exquisitely.
1963-70
Ford Cortina Lotus/Cortina Twin Cam
The pitch
was too good to resist: Take the specially developed twin-cam 1.55-liter Kent
engine tuned for the Lotus Elan, drop it in the Ford Cortina for homologation
purposes, and sell it to the masses. That’s the general gist; there was more to
it than that of course, as Lotus reengineered the Cortina’s suspension, doing
away with the rear leaf springs for coil springs and dampers, while also
fitting Girling front disc and rear drum brakes along with a servo. Some steel
body panels were switched out for aluminum, too.
The changes
were numerous and effective. The hotted-up Cortina, built by Lotus at its original
headquarters in Cheshunt, proved a critical darling as well as a sporting
success. The likes of Jim Clark, Jacky Ickx and Jackie Stewart steered Cortinas
to glory in various touring car series around the globe.
Starting in
1966, Ford chose to take on the responsibility of manufacturing the car itself
with Lotus’ engine, while cutting costs in the process. These “Mk2” models are
a bit frumpier looking and tend to be passed over in favor of the Lotus-made
earlier models, but they were also considered more reliable and refined in
their day, according to the historians over at Lotus Cortina Information.
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