Yeah, 'cause DeLorean and Alpine dominate the market don't they. If only Lotus had the foresight to develop a small, back-to-basics mid-engined roadster with an innovative extruded-aluminium chassis, then upscale the recipe into supercar territory with a kind of modular architecture based on the same aluminium technology, they might still be around today, not only making their own cars, but also helping other manufacturers out with theirs. Such a sad waste

The C&SC Ferrari Daytona Spyder vs. Maserati Ghibli Spyder issue got me into buying classic car mags ca. 1986/7. I've bought one or the other classic mag pretty much every month ever since. As a result of this I now know everything about every car made in the 20th century. Well almost...

Popups!!

It didn't really. There's nothing wrong with the cars even today, and once the new range is out there'll be even less to complain about on that front.

I think it's perception that's changed. Back in 1982, even though the country was riddled with strikes and we still made Austin Allegros, people still bought British and were proud to do so. Sticking up for the underdog was an integral part of Britishness because we believed in fair play and giving everyone a fair shot.

Nowadays we seem to have become a lazy nation happy to bung money towards ever-greedier monopolies in order to make our lives easier. If a firm makes a car that's the slightest bit demanding or different, rather than being drawn to it, we not only slag it off on the internet, we actually wish death on the company and redundancy on the employees in a kind of 'I told you so' act of social Darwinism. We want to be seen to be on the 'winning' side even if that victory actually hurts the country's economy because at some point we lost that gritty, sarcastic British sense of humour and adopted the corporate-American one, in which arrogance is 'justified' and there's humour in identifying and mocking 'losers'.

Interestingly, in other countries Lotus is still seen as a rare and desirable exotic, especially in America, where the Esprit always sold well - they even got versions we didn't, like the X180R racer and the Jim Clark edition. The Evora is quietly meeting its sales targets, it's just in other countries. Over here, we sneer at our own products, overlooking such important attributes as 'handling' and 'fun' and agonising at great length over how the doors sound when they close, and the sound your knuckles make when you rap them on some part of trim you wouldn't ordinarily even touch unless you were seeking to make a point.

Our motoring press has dished out all manner of awards to Lotus, but we've fetishised German cars, especially Porsche, BMW and Audi to such an absurd degree we're in danger of overlooking positive attributes in cars designed in Britain with British roads and drivers in mind that the German manufacturers don't even bother with.

Its nice to look at a collection of amazing cars and think 'I have owned one of those'. It was the XJS. I had a V12 HE and sold it as I had no room for it for 2k, worse thing I ever done as it was mint...

Telephone directory on my desk says £4.70

Worth it just for the shot of Justin Bank's Facel II by the Eiffel Tower.

Also some mega cars for sale in this issue including JD Classics Coombs MKII Jag, BUY 1 the Coombs demonstrator. Where do they get these cars from, they had a couple of Jim Clark Lotus Cortinas a few months back.

i am the odd one out here, not a big fan of any of them cars in the photo

At 1982 prices, I'll have half a dozen 250 GTO & 3 alloy bodied SWB

Just for you then Vixen1700

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