Vauxhall Lotus Carlton

Cracking car. Absolutely cracking car. Bleedin' marvellous car.

Peter

-- "The humble bic biro draws 13 beards, 9 devil moustaches and 49 penises on newspapers in its lifetime."

A member of the family has one.

I hate him. *g*

probably one of the best turbo'd cars made! was my dream as a kid to have one and sadly also a RST hehe

shame there getting pretty rare and cost a fortune when up for sale, and being vauxhall probably rust!

God's own car.

hello,

A lovely car, I think it was capable of around 180mph and a 0-60 time to leave a sierra cosworth wondering what happened.

Too big, too thirsty, too expensive to insure.

Does that make you feel any better? :)

A rather more successful marriage of Lotus abilities and Vauxhall car, unlike the Corsa, which after the first cosmetic and mechanicla revision, proudly had "Lotus engineered suspension," until Lotus requested it say otherwise...

It doesn't make me feel any better - I have the opportunity of getting a well looked after one, cheap *sniff*

Ooh, how cheap? Remember things like brake discs are around £500 for them, so don't expect even regular wearing parts to be cheap! But, oh, fantastic cars.

Peter

-- "The humble bic biro draws 13 beards, 9 devil moustaches and 49 penises on newspapers in its lifetime."

Yeah, but wouldn't that have been after Proton had bought Lotus and wanted to keep all the publicity about Lotus goodies to itself?

Good car, the closest you will get in this decade to one is the Vauhall/Opel/Holden Monaro.

Yes, but you will need deep pockets to keep it in good nick and it is well worth treating it properly and keeping it in good condition.

*cough*

Sssshhh! It's a great way to annoy Corsa drivers, heh! :)

How about a nice way to annoy Elise owners, "So what do you reckon to these new Protons then? Are they as crap as the old ones?".

Yes, time for the Skoda owners revenge.

Skoda, translated from Czech, means "It's a pity"

As there are but 1000 build, they were never anything but rare.

Not quite true: 140.000 km, 25.000 Eur (about 17000 UKP) was proposed (I am sure that at 20.000 Eur the car was mine) but there is that niggling question of maintenance.

I measured the disks which all four were under spec, contacted Lotus Alvan (disks and pads were mine for 2.500 UKP) and then I ran as fast as I could from the Lotus Omega.

Yes and on the same places: rear wheel arches. And yes: badly.

On the other hand: I know 2 Lotus Omega, 1 in Italy, one in Berlin, garanteed, confirmed, juré et craché (sworn and spit) both less than 15.000 km, two year warranty or 20.000 miles... but they are about their initial value too.

But then again: there are other nice things to be had. Still a drive in a Lotus Omega from Koln to Wiesbaden is something to remember: the fuel gauge descended physically. 260 km in about 1Hr 20 min, total anhillation of any BMW M5 and some very surprised Porsche-drivers. All that for a meagre 80 liters of fuel ;-)

Hard to understand the likes of GM and Ford: they made cars which when released pushed the boundaries quite a lot further. Neither of them has the slightest respect for their heritage.

Tom De Moor

Actually from Slovak, Slovakia is a seperate republic to CZ these days, but yes, it's true.

Being rare they tend to be babied and looked after - I know where theres a

30k miler that just comes out in summer for trackdays and shows, owned by a dealer and kept indoors through winter in a heated showroom. It's driven hard but meticulously looked after. Shame he won't sell.

I'd have to say it's possibly the one car that most of this group would buy, if they had sufficient funds to purchase* it

• and run it and insure it and put tyres on it etc you get the point monster of a car though, really

Yep, all very true. Maybe a group-purchased Lotus Carlton could be the thing that brings this group together, and we could put aside our petty differences in the name of Lotus Carltondom. Someone in a fairly central location, with their own (or access to) some proper secure dry storage (heated would be even better) would be its "guardian" and legal keeper, everyone would chip in on all of the running costs (including an "any driver" insurance policy, which I can't imagine would be cheap), and a fair system would be in place for people to book the car, for no more than their share of the year in total (i.e. if 20 people went in on it, then each person would be entitled to a maximum of 18.25 days' use).

Crazy enough idea, it might just work. Anyone up for it?

-- Peter

"The humble bic biro draws 13 beards, 9 devil moustaches and 49 penises on newspapers in its lifetime."