So many cars have had high-profile, low-volume restomod treatments at this point that we’re sort of surprised it’s taken this long for it to happen to something as long-lived and iconic as the Lotus Esprit. But happening it is, courtesy of a new outfit named Encor Design, and half a century to the very day after the original Esprit was unveiled to the world at the 1975 Paris Motor Show, it’s teased what it’s got in the works.
Encor calls it the Series 1, and it draws inspiration from the Giugiaro-designed Series 1 Esprit. Obviously. The teaser images the company’s released show that it’s faithful to that car’s wedgy proportions, but it’s set to get brand new carbon fibre bodywork in the place of the original fibreglass. It’s reworked the aero, too, and replaced the original car’s pop-up headlights with slender LEDs.
While the looks draw from the earliest Esprits, the bones come from the other end of the model’s near 30-year lifespan. The donor cars will be Esprit V8s, introduced in 1996 and still fundamentally the same car underneath as the original, but powered by a 3.5-litre twin-turbo flat-plane crank V8 – the last engine designed in-house by Lotus. That engine, which was making 350bhp in its ultimate guise, is being fully rebuilt by Encor with a view to ‘higher performance, improved drivability and greater everyday usability’.
We’re yet to see anything of the interior, but Encor says it’ll reinterpret the original with the finest leather, Alcantara and machined aluminium. It’ll also incorporate modern niceties like an infotainment display with Apple CarPlay and a 360-degree surround view camera – surely welcome in something with mid-engined supercar visibility. The 1990s-spec climate control will be binned off in favour of something a bit beefier, too.
Encor may be a new name among the ever-swelling ranks of restomodders, but it’s assembled a team with real provenance, hiring people with brands including Aston Martin, Porsche, Pagani and Koenigsegg on their CVs, as well as Lotus itself – several of its staff worked on the Emira.
We’ll see the car in full next month, but Encor has already announced that pricing will kick off at £430,000. As per, that doesn’t account for taxes or an Esprit V8 donor car. Excited to see what it’s working on?
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Mike joined Car Throttle as a Staff Writer at the start of 2024, a role that sees him driving the news desk, as well as reviewing cars and (often unsuccessfully) pitching features on obscure Italian hatchbacks.
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