The Lotus Grand Tourers

Its in the news and events section, heres what they said...
Lotus Grand Tourers produced a stand with graphic elements that argued the Elite, Eclat, Excel and Esprit all offered modern performance and rust resistance while providing classic looks, sensations and prices - but with no mention of reliability.
Which pissed me off and undermines all of the great effort put into the show. So I have written to them as follows. .

Come on now, isn't it about time to stop the Lotus 'Lots of trouble... yawn' jibes, specifically the undeserved comment at the end of the Grand Tourers report of ' no mention of reliability'. Lots of people still drive thier Lotus Excels as daily drivers or is thier only car with 200,000+miles on them, mines got close to 150,000 miles on it and I've owned it for over 30 years and its only been recovered once when a stone went through the radiator like a bullet. Yes, some People didn't maintain them properly so they broke down or they paid little money for a poor car and obviously it was the cars fault not the owner but isn't it about time to appreciate what are great cars. Lots of cars have common faults, TVR straight sixes, k series rovers, some BMWs have very common faults, I had to drive a RangeRover as a company car years ago and it spent more time in the workshop than on the road, Porsche intermediate shafts and modern wet belt engines are a subject of thier own. But they don't tar the entire range of cars past and present as unreliable like some journalists like to label all Lotus as unreliable. The worst electrics I have ever come across were not in a Lotus, Fiat, Renault etc that allegedly have poor electrics but in a Porsche 928. Can we please stop with the worn out clichés and have some measured and properly informed journalism please instead of trotting out the same old tunes. Promoting classic car ownership should be an aim, not trying to put people off with misinformation.

Its probably my age but I am tired of reading the same sort of rubbish from people who are supposed to know what they are talking about.

Bash

Well said Bash! And I appreciate the mention of a certain 200k+ Excel still used as a daily...

Right, maybe the theme for the next NEC show needs to be "Lotus Grand Tourers - The Reliable Sports Car" or something like that! If we are going to disagree with the stereotype, let's challenge it, set out our stall and prove our point!

Good one bash! After people have asked which Ferrari it is they then they come out with the usual clichés - tedious

Pete

Time for a new bacronym. Here's my starting suggestion:

LOTUS ELITE / ECLAT / EXCEL

Lots
Of
Thrills
Unstoppable and
Stylish

My last letter to them got published as letter of the month, I bet this one doesn't get published.
Good point on the pushing the reliability side, its all down to maintenance. Ive had 5 TVRs in the past and a few Fiat runarounds and non of them were unreliable because I looked after them. Some of the rivals back in the day are plummeting in numbers because of rust, 944s, Renault Alpines ( they were steel under the plastic) etc etc. We have had three Mx5s, na, nc and an nd. The na and nc were brilliant cars but both succumbed to rust, nobody slags them off in the press. But all we have to deal with are mechanicals and in the case of Excels we have a lot of bits from a make that is known for its reliability, Toyota.
Another one that you hear regularly is the Vauxhall engine myth in a dismissive tone and often repeated in the press.

Bash

For the Excel owners (Also Evora, Emira and later Elise/Exige) owners.

Loads Of Toyotas Useful Stuff

My Elite leads the tally in strandings 2-0 over my Evora despite being lower mileage (64k v 73k), so maybe there's some truth in it.
The reliablilty reputation of the wedges is all relative. Issues would have been less acceptable when new, but as 40 year old cars that don't break down any more than they did in the 80s I'd say they're pretty good by classic standards.

rbgosling wrote: Wed Dec 03, 2025 10:55 Time for a new bacronym. Here's my starting suggestion:

LOTUS ELITE / ECLAT / EXCEL

Lots
Of
Thrills
Unstoppable and
Stylish

Maybe 'UNSTOPABLE' is leaving us open to poor braking rumours. I suggest 'USEABLE' as an alternative...

Andy

Fair point Andy - there are enough unfounded rumours around already without starting any new ones!

I was just struggling to come up with any synonym for reliable/dependable that starts with one of the letters of LOTUS. Maybe the fact that there doesn't seem to be one should be telling us something...

bash wrote: Wed Dec 03, 2025 12:36 Another one that you hear regularly is the Vauxhall engine myth in a dismissive tone and often repeated in the press.

??? Which is?

All I know is DTV used Lotus engines for convenience, untill they were found out and had to use half of the Vauxhall V8

Biggest problem with a Lotus is they are stupid to work on, so maintenance can become a problem if you can't cope with that

The "Vauxhall" myth has a grain of truth that has been extrapolated into a falsehood. Depending on the variant, the ill-advised bore may claim that the engine in the Elite/Eclat/Excel/Esprit

• is a Vauxhall engine
• uses a Vauxhall block
• is based on a Vauxhall engine

The more accurate story is that the first part of the engine to be developed was the cylinder head - naturally, since that was the most radical part of the engine, a twin-cam 4-valve-per-cylinder design. This is what made the 900-series the first 4-valve mass-produced road car engine (yes, before the Triumph Dolomite Sprint, but only just, and the Dolly only had one camshaft). To carry out this development work, it was convenient to use an existing bottom end, and the Vauxhall Slant-4 was an appropriate size. Consequently, the 900-series inherited the same bore spacing, and some minor details like the head stud locations.

With the initial development of the head done, Lotus developed their own block, to be cast in aluminium rather than the Vauxhall's iron block. So in the end, there are no common parts.

According to Wikipedia, a couple of Lotus Type 62s (race cars evolved from the Europa) raced with hybrid engines with Vauxhall blocks and Lotus heads, apparently with muted success related to problems with the Vauxhall iron blocks.

Absolutely correct. You only need to look at where the distributor is on the Vauxhall to realise how different it is.

Bash

Good response to Classic & Sportscars Bash.
The theme of this years NEC Classic Show was " Best of Both Worlds".
For those who couldn't attend the show, the display we used and is clearly the one commented on was :



Agreed no mention of reliability, but when did you last see a BMW advert with "Reliability" plastered across it.
Surely it's taken for granted these days and the LGT's are no exception if looked after.

'According to Wikipedia, a couple of Lotus Type 62s (race cars evolved from the Europa) raced with hybrid engines with Vauxhall blocks and Lotus heads, apparently with muted success related to problems with the Vauxhall iron blocks.'

Indeed they did, in fact their successful debut race (1969 Brands BOAC 500) they (there were 2) where entered as Lotus Europa Type 62 - Vauxhall. There were also 'Lotus' Viva's and a CF Van used as cylinder head development mules...

Andy

MetBlue wrote: Wed Dec 03, 2025 20:11 Good response to Classic & Sportscars Bash.
The theme of this years NEC Classic Show was " Best of Both Worlds".
For those who couldn't attend the show, the display we used and is clearly the one commented on was :



Agreed no mention of reliability, but when did you last see a BMW advert with "Reliability" plastered across it.
Surely it's taken for granted these days and the LGT's are no exception if looked after.

Bit of a mistake having esprit in there as 5 out of 6 points in the poster only appliey to the 4 seaters.

Zag wrote: Fri Dec 05, 2025 17:34 Bit of a mistake having esprit in there as 5 out of 6 points in the poster only appliey to the 4 seaters.

Ashtrays for 4, but surely only two usable seats?