Esprit

[hatters]

http://classifieds.pistonheads.com/clas ... ion/815344

This is the Esprit I went to have a look at on Tuesday and said it wasn't big enough inside. I am going to have another look at it on Saturday
The only negative point about it is its a naturally aspirated one not a Turbo ,is there a great deal of difference in performance.
What do you guys think about it

[muley]

Sod it. A supercar for Fiesta money?

You only live once - go for it!

[Fredjohn]

Appears to be a very nice clean low mileage car. Usual worries about low mileage, lack of use Lotus, contrary to normal cars. Mileage clearly genuine though.

Close inspection of photos seems to show it has a glass sunroof panel. If this is the case, that will give a fair amount of extra headroom over non sunroof model. If you thought it was a bit cramped as it is, imagine it with normal roof!

I'm 6'1" and struggled to fit in one comfortably without sunroof. So that plus the huge 6ft width of the Esprit (I was used to driving a nimble S4 Elan at only 6 inches wide ) and the huge cost of turbo/manifold repairs put me off. At least this one is n/a though so that worry is gone.

However the turbo model is from performance point of view undoubtedly the one to go for.

Horses for courses: but this does look pretty immaculate: pity no engine bay shots.

Good luck

[Andy_J]

The S4 & V8 esprits have more room inside, but are a wee bit more expensive

[Gary1958]

Looks nice, buy it! Then, if you feel the performance is not enough you are not going to loose any money when you sell it. In the spring/early summer that car would go for £8,995 all day long(in my opinion)

[Stef]

The GT3 style thin seats, if you can get any, may give more room too and are very comfy!

[MPx]

Car looks lovely with some suggestion that its a garage queen.

Service history should be A,B,A,C,repeat. IIRC they should be done on a 6k miles or 6monthly schedule. That results in the C service belt change every 2 years. I've stretched mine out to one service each year (only 2-3k miles) so timing belt changed every 4 years - works for me! Looks like belt last changed on this one in 2005. At 7 years + ....this is a catastrophic failure waiting to happen. If you buy it, dont get tempted to drive it before you change the belt and check the tensioner. If you're going to get someone else (ie professional spannerman) to do a full C service then add £1k to price you pay for it before it will be ready for the road.....and that's assuming they dont find much else to do. With only 2k covered in the last 3 years or so, all sorts of things will probaby have become a bit stuck together. Comment above on cracked manifolds fair enough....more complex on the turbo due to the wastegate...but no less common a failure on the NA ... all due to the significant differential expansion between the cast iron manifold and alloy head I'm told. Nevetheless, in nearly 23 years including annual track use, I've only cracked one so far, so its not like it does it for a pastime.

I've clearly made my choice to have the turbo rather than NA, but we are all different in what we like and expect. At 160? bhp it wont be quick by modern standards, my Turbo is 210 which is still only just beyond being able to blow the skin off a rice pud. But those with the NA always say about the lovely throttle response. Performance of the Turbo is very noticeably quicker....and I dont detect any turbo lag in my Turbo, but then I've never driven an NA and Turbo back to back to be sure of the differences. Are you buying this for performance or looks? Former get a Turbo, latter get the NA.

Enjoy!