When Kia sold a Lotus - Goodwood Road and Racing

[donsladek]

Ran across this article By John Simister on the Goodwood Road and Racing site:

When Kia sold a Lotus

Short history of the M100 and the follow-on Kia Elan, leading up to the present day Kia Stinger.

[clemo]

Interesting read . Thanks for sharing .

[Rambo]

Yes, an interesting article but I wholeheartedly disagree with the latter part of his statement.......

" I would say the M100 Elan fulfilled its '90 per cent' brief, but it just wasn't that much fun to drive"

[Rusty Wishbone]

Thanks. It is a good read. Certainly, compared with modern cars, it is great fun to drive. Maybe a Peugeot 205 Gti would have been more 'fun' at the time because of lower grip levels. But this depends what you think fun is.

[Rusty Wishbone]

And I've added a comment at the end of the column - I've never seen anyone else add one, so I thought that I would give it a go.

[lotusflasherman]

Yes, an interesting article but I wholeheartedly disagree with the latter part of his statement.......

" I would say the M100 Elan fulfilled its '90 per cent' brief, but it just wasn't that much fun to drive"

John Simister is a pillock of the First Order... because he's a motoring journalist people believe the crap he writes but he has no credibility to me. I'll pay attention to Tiff Needell or Jason Plato who know how to drive but this guy is just 'a waste of space' !

[Rambo]

Yes, an interesting article but I wholeheartedly disagree with the latter part of his statement.......

" I would say the M100 Elan fulfilled its '90 per cent' brief, but it just wasn't that much fun to drive"

John Simister is a pillock of the First Order...' !

Phil, you are far too kind !!

I would suggest that if JS didn't find the M100 fun to drive he wasn't driving it right in the 1st place

[clemo]

I wonder if he would be interested in the " when Mazda sold Kia the E2000 carpet fitters van" .

Also a limited run that WillB and myself failed to drive to Gambia in .

[lotusflasherman]

Phil, you are far too kind !!

I would suggest that if JS didn't find the M100 fun to drive he wasn't driving it right in the 1st place

... he's written for the Independent & The Times and his articles never seem to 'inform' about the car, I wonder if he ever drives them, and always full of him or irrelevant stuff and his style makes me cringe ...
examples -
"I was never much good at differential calculus when I was at school. Had I been, maybe I would have been an engineer rather than a journalist..."
"The Lotus Evora, looking like an upscaled Elise, arrived in 2009. Now it has been reworked into the Evora 400, a car that pulls off the same trick..."
"Peugeot used to make some of the best hot hatchbacks around. Cars that were laugh-out-loud fun – machines such as the 205 GTI, ..."

[Don.Hasi]

The modern classics mag has challenged the best FWD cars incl the M100. Might be interesting where it gets out.


The term with the boring attitude comes more often from the sort of drivers who find themselves (!) to be a hardcore racer and want to tell it the world... nothing more than a typical 5-6year old boy behaviour to please other boys...


@ Phil: which Riviera do you own also?

[lotusflasherman]

@ Phil: which Riviera do you own also?

sorry guys but it's polite to answer ...
Don, it's this one ..

ECLAT 01.JPG

ECLAT 02.JPG

ECLAT 03.JPG

Riviera was a special edition removable grp roof panel (not glass as incorrectly stated in Mathew Vale's 'definitive book') offered on Type 83 Elite or Type 84 Eclat to try to boost sales.
They made 133 T83 & 223 T84 in total and I read somewhere just over 80 Riviera were made split about 30 on T83 Elite, about 50 on T84 Eclat. Now that's a Limited Edition !

My Riviera has 2.2 engine, Getrag 5 speed box, aircon, Speedline wheels (different PCD to Speedlines on Excels), full width front spoiler, boot lid spoiler, louvres in bonnet different to earlier models and electric motors operate headlights.
Oh ... and Rambo - it has black rear view mirrors too...

[Don.Hasi]

Nice one, Phil.

Looks very similar to mine I read somewhere from 69 Eclat and 12 Elite. Which Vin do you have ? Maybe we have build number neighbours



Sorry for hijacking, but Kia is after all these years only now at the point with the stinger where Lotus has been 40yeras before without the sharp looking. And mine has also black view mirrors

[GeoffSmith]

10 p(o)ints for guessing where this one was photographed.

Img_1696cx1280.jpg

[Saltire]

SN14 7EY?

And it’s a Leicester registration on the Eclat - probably came from Storm, like my S2.

Wychwood Hobgoblin for my 10 pints please

[GeoffSmith]

Hook line and sinker!

Close…

Img_1697x1280.jpg

… but no cigar.

Img_1694x1280.jpg

[lotusflasherman]

Which Vin do you have ? Maybe we have build number neighbours

What colour is yours? Can't be sure from the photo but looks like might be Roman Purple ? Mine is Signal Red - thought my first M100 was same colour but Collapso faded to pink, Signal Red is still red after 35 years!

Serial Number (last 4 digits) of mine is 1137 and engine number ends ###20301.
Inside of mine is not good. Foam backing to headlining material decomposed to a brown powder so I got it out with a vacuum cleaner and re-glued it with an aerosol adhesive which is now showing through a bit brown - not very elegant.

[GeoffSmith]

Here's one just for Kathryn...

Img_1798x1280.jpg

[lotusflasherman]

Hook line and sinker!

Close…

… but no cigar.

Well I knew it couldn't be 'Combe - foliage all wrong for Wiltshire and too many steering wheels on the wrong side - but where was it Geoff? Somewhere in Andalusia ?

[Bern]

The yellow Esprit looks like it could be USA spec. There's also a lack of front number plates (apart from the Eclat red herring (which may have been another Lotus limited edition perhaps?)).

[lotusflasherman]

Yeah, I was also wondering about US because lack of front plates and the large range of types, ages etc.. nearly everything from Climax Elite to Evora and a Lotus Cortina Estate ??? That's a new one on me!
Turn out probably too big for anywhere in Europe as well ... Geoff ???