Yahoo Autos At $28,000, Does This 1977 Lotus Esprit S1 Offer Some Faded Glory?
Weathered paint can’t hide the inherent beauty of today’s Nice Price or No Dice Lotus’ iconic design, penned by automotive legend Giorgetto Giugiaro. Let’s find out if this Esprit’s overall package makes its price perfectly palatable.
Robert Frost may have had miles to go before he could sleep, but the 1995 BMW 540i we looked at yesterday had already done those miles and then some. That daunting distance that was revealed in the ad was a deal killer for most of you, especially at the car’s not-insubstantial $16,500 asking. The result was the car dropping in a 78 percent No Dice loss.
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This 1977 Lotus Esprit S1 is representative of that OG model, denoted by its tail lamps, taken from a Fiat X1/9 and its original 16-valve Lotus 907 engine, which it shared with the much shorter-lived Jensen Healey. This is one of 580 Esprits built for the 1977 model run.
In U.S. trim, where it was fitted with emissions-compliant Zenith Stromberg 175 CD side-draught carburetors, the 1974cc all-alloy four offered 140 horsepower. This was at a time when the base Chevrolet Corvette V8 only managed a meager 180 horses.
Here, those ponies are routed through a standard Citroën-sourced five-speed transaxle to the rear wheels. Disc brakes are fitted all around, mounted in front to suspension components that can trace their lineage all the way back to the Triumph Herald.
Per the ad, this Esprit has 47,500 miles on the clock and enjoyed a full body-off mechanical restoration about eight years back. The seller addresses the car’s aesthetics — faded paint and fabrics and some obvious wear — by noting that the previous owner purposefully left them that way. The claim is that the car “can only be original once,” which is hard to argue with. It should also be noted that nothing on the car appears overly worn or tacky, just weathered and a bit tired in places. On the plus side, plaid seats and trim!
