Tuesday 6th February 2018

New range of Lotus 70th anniversary editions

Exige and Elise get a birthday spruce up to mark seven decades of Lotus

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Apologies, first off. These special edition Lotuses have been known to the world for a couple of days now, but they hadn't yet come onto our news radar. Can we call it fashionably late to the birthday party? Here's what you need to know...

The Exige 70th Edition will be available as either a Sport 350 or Sport 380, with three classic Lotus colours - Empire Green, Essex Blue and Monaco White. Further distinguishing the 70th are additional badges, stickers and stitching, with the adornments conveniently reminding you of the maximum permitted speed for your Lotus in the UK... From what can be seen from these pics they feature ahead of the rear wheels and on the headrests.

Prices haven't yet been announced for the 70th Edition, though just 40 will be made; therefore expect a slight premium over the £57,200 and £67,900 asked for the standard Sport 350 and 380 models respectively.

The Elise has also been given a new birthday get up, celebrating that most iconic Lotus motorsport colour scheme with the GP Edition. Based on a Cup 250, its black and gold livery is continued inside with various nods to the F1 success as well. In case you hadn't heard. This time production seemingly isn't limited but a price is still unconfirmed; a regular Cup 250 currently retails at £46,500.

All jolly marvellous, though it probably won't have escaped your attention that these Lotuses don't boast any new weight saving or performance enhancing measures, as is Hethel tradition. So a secondhand alternative may just suffice, if you can do without the birthday badges... See this Essex Blue Exige Sport 350, a 2017 car but still unused, or this Kawasaki Green Elise Cup 250 - who wants black anyway? Finally, should your Lotus F1 tastes lean more towards 25s than 72s, how about a Cup 250 in a one-off colour combo?

[Source: Lotus, via Twitter]

 

[Over over under steer]

Owned an s'charged Elise Cup Racer. Great car, love Lotus, wish them nothing but success.

But.... Christ there is a special edition every other week at the moment. Not sure how that makes me feel now, but when I was an owner my model (at least to me) felt out of date pretty quickly. Not sure how this is making other new Lotus owners, perhaps I was just a bit wet.

[British Beef]

Very Nice, but then so are the standard cars!!

Would be nice if Lotus offered a special experience with these cars like an opportunity to sample a Lotus from each decade around the Hethel track. Memmories are worth more than a Limited edition badge / special Paint job.

Hell, they could cover 3 decades just with the Esprit, in its different Versions.

If you are selling a car based on history, then give the prospective owner a real taste of that history!

[bosshog]

Over over under steer said:

But.... Christ there is a special edition every other week at the moment. Not sure how that makes me feel now, but when I was an owner my model (at least to me) felt out of date pretty quickly. Not sure how this is making other new Lotus owners, perhaps I was just a bit wet.

Its just their way of keeping interest in the current model. They have been doing it for 20+ years

[Porsche911R]

Selling off the old models before the move to fully charge cooled imo

[Cold]

Geely has just purchased a chunk of Daimler group. They snapped up 5% at a cost of around £3.5bn. Give the overlap of the various marques under the respective umbrellas there could be some interesting collaborations ahead.

[deltashad]

Special edition Lotus', how refreshing.....

[AlexHat]

Pistonhead's Article said:

Prices haven't yet been announced for the 70th Edition, though just 40 will be made

Surely for the 70th Edition you'd make 70? Where has 40 come from? Random number picker?

[Jellinek]

I think the 40 is based on what they think they can sell. Only 1 Evora was sold in Europe in each month in November and December last year according to the figures I’ve seen, so making 70 special edition makes little sense.

[wab172uk]

Well, it's about time Lotus released some special edition models. Can't remember the last time they did !!!!


Oh no, wait ...... it was a couple weeks ago. Then a couple weeks before that .........

[swisstoni]

Just make a new car FFS!
Could they not just rebody the same platforms at least..

[Oakman]

Jellinek said:

I think the 40 is based on what they think they can sell. Only 1 Evora was sold in Europe in each month in November and December last year according to the figures I’ve seen, so making 70 special edition makes little sense.

In the late 1980's early 90's I owned a commemorative Elan +2S 130 5 speed (yes a 5th gear was special then ! - poor box from an Austin Maxi).

It was in Black with Gold metalflake roof and sills. They carried a commemorative badge celebrating Lotus 50 F1 Grand Prix victories. Most people thought there were 50 cars built - mine was #84 of 85.

Graham Arnold who ran Club Lotus and was Lotus Sales Director at that time said they only intended to build 50 - didn't expect to sell more - they got orders for 85 ultimately !

A low production car then (like now) and not a big problem to interrupt the spray shop production run - though the gold metalflake was sprayed in the mould apparently / found this out when we fully repainted my car, it took multi layers of clear lacquer to cover the flake - it was like the striking side of an old matchbox :-))

On these 'new' models if the demand was there they could build them.

Edited by Oakman on Wednesday 7th February 10:48

[saaby93]

Where is the Evora Roadster

[anonymous-user]

New special additions you say, well I never.

• sigh

[kambites]

Oh joy; more "special" paint jobs.

[Kolbenkopp]

Slightly off-topic, but anyone know if it is true they are going to stop making the 'junior' 136 bhp Elise? Think one of the German dealers mentioned that a while ago...

[deltashad]

If you own a lotus which is not a special edition you are in the minority. Which kind of makes the non specials the special ones.