One to Buy: 3 owner 36,000 mile 1991 Lotus Carlton For Sale
/
When it came to in-house-built high performance Saloon cars, BMW’s Motorsport division had the sector pretty much sewn up throughout the 1980s.
However, when General Motors acquired Lotus in 1986, executives from the two organisations decided to embark on a mutually beneficial image-building project by creating the fastest four door production car ever offered to the public.
Using the contemporary Vauxhall Carlton / Opel Omega as a basis, the Lotus Type 104 broke cover in prototype form at the Geneva Motor Show in March 1989. Production began 18 months later in September 1990.
The assembly process saw a standard Carlton / Omega GSi 3000 24v delivered to the Lotus factory in Hethel where the suspension, engine, glass and interior were stripped out. The bodyshell was then modified with cutaways to accommodate a brawny body kit and beefed up transmission. Engines were sent away to be comprehensively uprated; they returned in 3.6-litre 377bhp twin turbocharged configuration complete with six-speed ZF gearbox.
Most Lotus Carlton’s were pressed into daily use and as a result racked up moon mileage within a couple of years. However, currently on offer at the Sasso Automotive showroom in East Riding of Yorkshire is a well preserved car with just 36,000 miles on the odometer.
First registered on August 30th 1991, this freshly serviced Lotus Type 104 (one of 950 built) has been in the possession of just three owners from new and must surely rank among the best to exist.
