RE: Lotus Carlton: Spotted

[B'stard Child]

Caddyshack said:

dmcrobin said:

VR6 Eug said:

To give an idea of how much these cost in 1991, I brought my 1st house that year and that was £33000 opposed to a car that cost £48000!
My friend brought one in 1997 for £21000 and its still in his garage now but with a blown head gasket and at the moment and no way of fixing it as that part isn't available anymore from anyone he's tried, lotus even have some cylinder heads for them left but no gaskets, if anyone knows how to get one made, a post on here would be appreciated thx
P.S. I believe one lotus carlton was silver, owned by the director of opel but I could be wrong

Exactly the reason I sold mine, couldn’t get a clutch for it unless I had one made, could get cam chains but no guides - I enjoyed owning it, had it for 5 years and about 15,000 Miles but couldn’t bear the thought that one day it’d break and it couldn’t be fixed because so many LC specific parts are completely unavailable, so I sold it.

Surely you need to go to a head gasket manufacturer and have a run made and keep the extras to sell knowing you are the only one with them for sale?

OE Head gaskets are readily available - OE Head bolts aren't but ARP do a stud kit which resolves the issue.

I'd be amazed if there are LC's still out there that haven't had chains and guides done - mine has only done 40K miles and it's had all that done because the alternatives to not getting that done are quite catastrophic. I've probably done at least 8 or 9 LC camchain and guide changes over the years (the head doesn't need to come off to do this)

Cylinder heads - a local engine specialist converted 10 std 24V heads to LC spec a few years back as part of a group buy but if he had to do it on a one off basis the conversion would be around £500 using a suitable 24V head - it's only a bit of machining to increase the size of the combustion chambers and replace a core plug with an outlet pipe - plus valve seat cutting all the other things that you would do if you were overhauling a cyl head

You have to remember that Lotus built this car and raided pretty much every parts bin that GM could supply - there is a water valve in the engine bay that comes of a Chevy Bus.......

Nothing is impossible when it comes to re-manufacture - a team of ABS members have worked with a manufacturer to develop a complete set of Silicone hoses (in Black to match the OE ones)

If you run one of these cars and don't know much about them then the advantages of being in a specialist owners club are essential

Caddyshack said:

I believe with modern machining it is possible to have both faces so cleanly machined that you could work without a gasket....I may be talking rubbish though.

Cast Iron Block - Alloy head - I'd want a gasket in there plus the compression ratio is already quite high for a force fed engine with machining of both surfaces and no gasket it would be a bit too high.

[B'stard Child]

ukaskew said:

Had no idea these cost so much new back then, also oddly I always thought these were black.

Common error - it's a very dark green - in sunlight it sometimes has a slightly purple tint/look to it.

[Cold]

Caddyshack said:

Surely you need to go to a head gasket manufacturer and have a run made and keep the extras to sell knowing you are the only one with them for sale?

I believe with modern machining it is possible to have both faces so cleanly machined that you could work without a gasket....I may be talking rubbish though.

No need. Just buy this one already posted previously in the thread:

kylos27 said:

Ebay link

The link is to The Lotus Centre (or South West Lotus as they used to be known) who stock many new/remanufactured/new-old-stock parts for the Lotus Carlton. I can't believe the person previously mentioned has owned their car for over ten years with a blown head gasket and hasn't thought to try them or even ask advice from the various Lotus forums - who would direct them to SWL.

Sounds like yet another of the mythical tales that surround the Lotus Carlton.

[B'stard Child]

Cold said:

Caddyshack said:

Surely you need to go to a head gasket manufacturer and have a run made and keep the extras to sell knowing you are the only one with them for sale?

I believe with modern machining it is possible to have both faces so cleanly machined that you could work without a gasket....I may be talking rubbish though.

No need. Just buy this one already posted previously in the thread:

kylos27 said:

Ebay link

The link is to The Lotus Centre (or South West Lotus as they used to be known) who stock many new/remanufactured/new-old-stock parts for the Lotus Carlton. I can't believe the person previously mentioned has owned their car for over ten years with a blown head gasket and hasn't thought to try them or even ask advice from the various Lotus forums - who would direct them to SWL.

Sounds like yet another of the mythical tales that surround the Lotus Carlton.

Nice profit margin in that ebay gasket - it's £65 C30SE gasket with additional perforations to make it to C36GET spec - my local machinist does them in batches of 10 at a time

I can't comment on SWL without falling foul of the name and shame rules.

[B'stard Child]

fesuvious said:

Ditto.

And I'm somebody spending six figures building myself a near new one / perfectly restored one of these.

You don't expect to build a new engine twice.......

Exactly - if a company is supplying NOS (new old stock) at a very high price you don't expect a failure from those components supplied

[blade7]

Andy20vt said:

cars like the , RS2, B5 RS4, had that perfect combination of motorsport pedigree,

[Winky151]

VR6 Eug said:

NotNormal said:

That car came out of Lotus just like all the rest in green. It was then subsiquently sprayed silver. A poor job too as last time I saw that car the engine bay and door shuts were still green.

Edited by NotNormal on Saturday 13th January 10:12

Many thx for the info on parts, I'll pass it on and hopefully the green beast will return to the road

If you/he wants some info to join ABS feel free to message me as I'm the treasurer (& have my own LC).

[B'stard Child]

fesuvious said:

B'stard Child said:

Exactly - if a company is supplying NOS (new old stock) at a very high price you don't expect a failure from those components supplied

Ahh, what about if you were paying 'money no object' on an engine build;

SAND in cylinder head
Paint that WD40 takes off
Core plugs not sealed
Wrong fixings ('concourse requirment)
Wrong turbo pipes

The list goes on, and on, and on.

Still, perfect now. Thanks to the chaps that figured it'd be better with a 'specialist' to do.

Said specialist couldn't even correctly quote correct torque settings for head bolts. Moreover turns out isn't even using correct bolts and hasn't for years!

I know an owner who thought he had head gasket issues (water in the oil and oil in water) turned out to be a cracked block - he bought a NOS block - rebuilt the engine around the new block and still had water in the oil issues - stripped it down and found the NOS block was cracked.- he had to purchase another block which was fully tested before being used to rebuild the engine again - all new gaskets etc - eventually the first block supplied was returned to the supplier and he got a refund for the cost of the block - that's all. Very poor customer service IMO

[aaron_2000]

mikey P 500 said:

They nearly made a lotus cavalier too, when I was about 12yrs old I had a ride in the prototype one (nextdoor neighbour was Roger Becker), had the similar performance in a smaller car. Still have memories of how fast it was. I assume the lotus Vauxhall link finished before it made production.

That would've wiped the floor with Sierra Cosworths, I heard about a Lotus Senator too

https://static.carthrottle.com/workspace/uploads/m...

[Caddyshack]

Iron block to alloy head would need a gasket I think...I canimagine the flood until it all came up to temp.

My point though is nothing is impossible and clearly this problem is already solved.

[NotNormal]

aaron_2000 said:

That would've wiped the floor with Sierra Cosworths,

When I spoke to Mike Kimberley last year he said the final plan was for it to be a Lotus Calibra. Test mule was started in the Cavalier as they shared the same underpinings

aaron_2000 said:

I heard about a Lotus Senator too
https://static.carthrottle.com/workspace/uploads/m...

That Senator was built up using parts from a Lotus Carlton all-be-it with an auto g/box. The builder wanted to emulate what was orignially discussed by GM/Lotus at the start of the collaboration whereby they talked about building the Senator before deciding to progress with the Carlton.

[aaron_2000]

NotNormal said:

aaron_2000 said:

That would've wiped the floor with Sierra Cosworths,

When I spoke to Mike Kimberley last year he said the final plan was for it to be a Lotus Calibra. Test mule was started in the Cavalier as they shared the same underpinings

What a shame they never made it, would've given them an Escort Cosworth/M3 Rival that the Lotus Carlton was too expensive for.

[B'stard Child]

Anyway might as well sling a few pictures up

This is the car mentioned above when it was finally back on the road



Some of mine

Before I bought it (in a sealed bid auction direct from Lotus in 2000)



Arriving late for a club gathering (I do this to avoid parking next to "not normal" because his car makes most look scruffy)



Looks like I got lucky - to the right of "not normal" with the safety of a car between us



A few LC's gathered for an club/car anniversary



On the hill at Shelsley



At Snetterton for a Local PHEA meet



PH meet at Le Mans Classic (nice venue seemed rude not to take a snap)



Rare clean shot



More normal look (Shelsley Walsh)



It does get used in the rain



At it's original home (on track but not being driven by Tiff)



Silverstone



NEC Classic car show



In Italy on holiday (this is what the car is great at - munching miles at relatively high speeds - we did Norfolk to Milan in a day 900 miles and two tanks of fuel)



It has an interesting history (some of it verified on the internals)





It also has an odd build number 0000

[Porkymerc]

"The Millenium Falcon of saloon cars"

An old mate had an ex police Senator and that felt quite quick with circa 210bhp, these must have seemed silly fast in 1992.

[Talksteer]

Hairymonster said:

so a top speed of 176mph and 377bhp got the Daily Wail hot under the collar back in 1990.

Hot hatches (AMG A45, RS3) are now pushing 400bhp - I wonder when, if ever, we'll stop chasing ultimate bhp.

In practical terms most sports car manufacturers have not been chasing max power since the 80's brought turbochargers and EFI. Not coincidentally this is about the time that F1 rules started becoming much tighter and F1 speeds have since then spent periods of going up and up for 3-5 years before a rule change brings the speeds down.

The F40 had 170bhp/l in the 1987, the FQ400 had 200bhp/l in 2005.

Fitting an 8l engine into the back of a road going car is easily packaged and adding twin turbochargers and putting out 1600bhp is perfectly possible for any major manufacturer with a small development budget. The Mercedes AMG 63 (what is 63 referring to now) engine could probably be pushed to ~ 800bhp if they really wanted.

The issue is more making high power outputs safe, usable and enjoyable for a typical owner. This is really been dependant on suspension, electronics and tyre technology.

The other element is public perception and desire, cost in auto-motive is predominantly driven by volume if people (amd by people I include government) wanted the average car to be capable of doing 160 it would be and would not cost much more than it does today. Instead while average car performance creeps up people who want higher performance pay disproportionately more for more powerful models and lower volume performance cars.

I'd say that the Mclaren F1 probably has the distinction of being the first car "too fast" for the roads in that the previous generation Countach/Testarossa/Diablo could conceivably be got up to 85-90% of top speed on a quiet morning blast on a motorway.

Since then the bar for performance exceeding what can practically be used on the road has passed down through 2000-2005 hypercars (Enzo), 2009 base model super cars (458, 12S), 2014 911 Turbo. Probably the next 911 GTS will have 500bhp+ do 200mph and 0-100 in 7 seconds to pass this bar too. Super hot hatches will probably have 500bhp+ within 10 years.

This is all academic because self driving cars will be happening soon and that will probably kill it along with electric cars soon going ridiculously fast the Tesla Roadster II with 0-100 in 4.9 seconds and a top speed of 250mph will be cheaper than a Maclaren 720S. The performance and tech will probably be translated to the Model S and 3 pretty quickly too as back to my previous point electric performance is scalable so very normal cars will end-up with extreme performance almost as a matter of course.

[Rat_Fink_67]

I know it's all very subjective, one man's turd is another's treasure etc, particularly with cars; but the Lotus Carlton is one of my all time favourites and definitely on the "lottery list". It ticks all the boxes for me

[B'stard Child]

greenarrow said:

The prices have gone crazy, but the Carlton deserves it for its impact and notoriety. I doubt we'll ever get a super saloon again like it.

Super Saloon but not super car - there was a thread recently where I was tempted to throw it into the mix but then I remembered it was just a mini cab on steriods

[aaron_2000]

If you haven't already, you should give this a read, made me laugh

https://jalopnik.com/an-amazing-lotus-tuned-sedan-...

[neejah]

I actually enquired about this with KGF, and the photos & videos - it looks pretty clean.
I remember when they came out & seeing them at the motor show, always made me want one.
Issue is I’m currently in the US, so would have to transport it & register etc which isn’t a giant deal (over 25 years old for import) plus its LHD which would be ideal! However, for all they were a beast back in the day, I can’t help but think my C63 would be the better car.....and you can get parts.
Plus, once you factor in the shipping etc.....I’d probably end up somewhere in the £65k range, which is close to $85k over here.....that gets a lot of metal.

If I’d gone & looked at it when I was over at Christmas, there may not have been a car for sale to post!

[GTDNB]

I see one of these on a fairly regular basis around the Bromley area. Those headlights and grille always catch my eye from a distance. It a
always seems to be going the other way so i haven't had an opportunity to 'follow' it!