One to Buy: Barn Find 26,000 mile 1976 Signal Red Lotus Esprit S1
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Styled by Giorgetto Giugiaro at Ital Design, the Lotus Esprit came to be regarded as a seminal creation from the automotive Wedge era.
Manufactured from 1976 to 2004, the Esprit was produced in myriad different forms and, as a testament to the enduring quality of Giugiaro’s work, continued to look great throughout the 1980s, 1990s and into the early 2000s when tastes had changed dramatically. In addition, having been launched largely without serious safety gear, later Esprits went on to elegantly incorporate the kind of impact-absorbing bumpers that other designs struggled with.
As first to arrive, the S1 is widely considered the purest iteration of the Esprit theme, its unadulterated form offering similar purity to contemporaries like the first generation Lamborghini Countach and de-spoilered Lancia Stratos. Launched at the Paris Motor Show in October 1975 and produced from 1976 to 1978, a little over 700 copies of the S1 were built, the most famous of which went on to star in 1977’s James Bond epic, The Spy Who Loved Me.
Despite only having been endowed with a 160bhp four cylinder engine, the S1 punched well above its weight in performance terms thanks to the kind of superb chassis dynamics that Lotus had become renowned for and which had delivered so many Formula 1 titles their way.
On November 15th, a very low mileage example of the rarely seen Esprit S1 will be going under the hammer at Iconic Auctioneers’ NEC Classic Motor Show sale in Birmingham.
Produced in late 1976 and registered TTO 227R in February 1977, chassis ‘0233’ left Hethel in the same colour combination it wears today: Signal Red with Brown and Oatmeal Marcasite fabric upholstery. The highly original 26,000 mile car, which has been off the road for more than two decades and is ripe for a sympathetic restoration, is accompanied by a history file that includes MOT documentation dating back to 1980 when the mileage stood at a little over 13,000 miles.
