1991 Lotus Elan M100

After laying dormant for fourteen years, Lotus revived the Elan nameplate and gave it a design created in-house by Lotus. The engine and manual transmission were supplied by Isuzu and were developed and built with the resources of General Motors, which had acquired Lotus in 1986.

The development prototype was the M90, later renamed the X100, and wore a fiberglass body designed by Oliver Winterbottom. The 1.6-liter engine and transmission were sourced from Toyota, as Lotus had hoped the project would be a collaboration with a Japanese company and would be able to sell the car through Toyota dealerships worldwide. The 'Lotus Toyota' never came to fruition so the project was put on hold. Toyota would later design a similar car named the Toyota MR2.

In late 1986, the Peter Steven's designed Type M100 was given approval, and the necessary alterations were made to the clay styling buck, transforming the M90 project into the car that would be put into production. The design and development process took just under three years to complete, including over two years testing the car. The company built 19 crash cars and 42 development vehicles and nearly a million test miles were performed in locations that included the desert conditions of Arizona to the frigid areas of the Arctic. Each new car was test-driven for approximately 30 miles at Lotus's Hethel factory prior to being shipped to dealers.

The Lotus Elan was given a fiberglass composite body over a rigid steel backbone chassis. Its use of front-wheel-drive configuration made it the only Lotus to employ this setup. The 1,58cc double overhead camshaft (DOHC) inline-4 cylinder engine had 16-valves, developed 162 horsepower in turbocharged form, and was sourced from the Isuzu Gemini, albeit with extensive modifications by Lotus. Zero-to-sixty mph took 6.5 seconds and its top speed was 137 mph. The normally aspirated version produced 130 horsepower. Both versions of the engine were backed by a five-speed manual transmission.

The Elan had a wheelbase measurement of 88.6-inches and a length of 149.7-inches. The Elan version destined for the United States was slightly longer at 152.2-inches.

The introduction of the Elan coincided with the release of the Mazda MX-5 which was more affordable and 'nostalgic.' The result was rather disappointing sales due to the high cost of the Elan, and between November 1989 and July 1992, just 3,855 examples were built. Of those, 129 examples were equipped with the normally aspirated engine, and 559 examples were sold in the United States wearing the 'stage 2 body' which had a lengthened nose to comply with U.S. crash structure and airbag, along with a different rear boot spoiler arrangement. U.K. versions rode on 15-inch wheels while the U.S. versions had 16-inch wheels.

Two years after the end of the original production run, from June 1994 through September 1995, a limited edition of 800 Series 2 (S2) M100 Elans was built. They were given surplus engines and were sold only in the U.K. market. The 155 horsepower engine allowed the S2 M100 Elan to race from zero-to-sixty mph in 7.5 seconds.

Kia Motors acquired the production rights to the Elan after the production of the Lotus-built car ended in 1995. The Kia Elan had a similar design to the Lotus counterpart with the most visual difference being the Kia-designed taillights. The car was produced at Kia Motech (Kia Motor-technology) in Ansan, South Korea from 1996 to 1999 and 1,056 examples were built.

The Lotus Elan Concept was introduced in 2010 at the Paris Auto show and the production version was expected for 2013. It was expected to use a supercharged four-liter V6 engine with 450 horsepower. It was intended to use a seven-speed dual-clutch gearbox from Toyota and was capable of 193 mph. The car was never put into production.

by Daniel Vaughan | Aug 2021