I just about lost it when I came across this poking around on Craig’s List last night.

Here’s the entirety of the guys entry:

“Mid 1960’s, world’s first race car simulator. ‘based around an actual Lotus 31 Formula 3 car…made from standard manufacturing parts’

Featured in the Dead Man’s Treasure episode of The Avengers in 1967, this one is not as shocking as Steed’s drive. Have copy of episode, very cool.

‘Lotus had designed the unit to run very much along the lines of the leading flight-sims of the day’…AutoSimSport

This one comes with modern electrical components for use with recent racing sims such as Grand Prix Legends - a simulation of racing from the same era as this original car.

None other like it outside of England, own a unique piece of history. Race green to your heart’s content ‘virtually’ around the world without using a drop of gasoline.

Or enjoy it as art - whether you stand it on end - as some ex F1 drivers did with their cars, mount it on the ceiling or wall, or just leave it on its tires, it’s a grand piece of art - the simple lines of the 60’s race cars are nothing short of elegant. ”

Now, I’m a pretty big sim guy, and the Big Boss Man here at AutoMoBlog, Chris, well knows. I’ve spent thousands on controllers and cockpits and what not, and normally seeing something like this would have piqued my interest, but it was this part that almost had me jumping out of my seat: “Featured in the Dead Man’s Treasure episode of The Avengers in 1967, this one is not as shocking as Steed’s drive. Have copy of episode, very cool.”

I remember seeing that episode on TV when it was first broadcast, I remember my dad & brothers trying to figure out what kind of car it was. We could all tell that the track was Brands Hatch though.

I remember thinking at the time just how cool it was and boy wouldn’t it be neat to have something like THAT one day.

Well that day came and went many years ago. The processing power we have and the software that’s out there is uunbelievable from the perspective of The Avengers in the 1960s.

But still, how cool would it be to own this rig?

There’s pictures of how it currently looks after the jump.

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Ah, another car for the Euros, and, sadly, not for us here in the U. S. of A. … and for a lot of Euros too.

The car you see here is the Jim Clark edition of the Lotus Elise. Loaded with tons of old style goodies - as well as a 218 HP supercharged engine. It’s got British racing green paint and a broad yellow stripe and number dots on the doors. They’re only making 25 more examples of it (seems this is the second run of the limited edition (does that even count then?)), and it doesn’t come cheap at €44,100 in England and €54k in Germany, France and Italy.

It’s easy these days, and has been so for a quite a while to make a “Limited Edition” of this car or that, and usually the only thing limited about it is the crookedly affixed decal saying “Limited”.

This car, although really just a limited edition trim job, does honor one of the greatest racers of all time from the company he drove for exclusively. It would be as if Ferrari were to roll out a Michael Schumacher Edition in 2048. There are people who would question the comparisons between Schumacher and Clark, by I’m not one of them. They were both the benchmarks of their eras.

Everyone else was compared to them.

Press release follows.

Source: Autoblog

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Long rumored and spy-photoed, the Lotus “Eagle” has just debuted at the British Motor Show in London and it’s official name has been revealed: Evora. The official name is quite nice, keeps the with long running E-names for Lotus cars, and (as a bonus for me) is also the name of a nice little town in Portugal.

As with all thing Lotus, it promises to be light, tight, and handle right.

A 2+2 coupe (not something they have been that successful with in the past, for instance, the Eclat) tips the scales at a kind of heavy (for a Lotus) 2,976 lbs and promises to dash from 0 to 60mph in under 5.0 sec with a top speed of 160 mph. The motive power comes from a mid-mounted Toyota 3.5L V6 delivering 280 PS (not sure what the conversion to NA HP would be).

Apparently Lotus felt the need to make things spacious for the main occupants of their new ride, stating that the cabin “will accommodate two 99th percentile (6ft 5in tall) American males in the front seats.” Not sure why they did this, since the Elise seems to be selling rather briskly.

Source: Those fine folks at CarScoop

More pics after the jump.

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Enzo Ferrari said that “An institution is the lengthened shadow of one man.”

And so, that seems to still be holding true for Lotus, one of histories greatest car companies, founded by one of histories greatest automotive and racing engineers, Colin Chapman.

Chapman’s C/V is littered with innovations, any one of which most engineers would be happy to call enough.

Chapman died decades ago but the company that he founded continues to innovate, and in this case they’re brining their innovations to the street for both high rollers and low.

Specifically, they are building a hydrogen taxi and hybrid limo. The taxi is part of the Zero Emission London Taxi Commercialization Project, a government deal, and Lotus is taking a big swing by using a hydrogen fell cell (think NASA). Well, that sure as hell will have low emmisions, and look, it’ll be used by Proles like you & me. Continue Reading…

Ah, good old Lotus, always trying to push the boundaries of engineering and, occasionally, other things too.

Lotus has, for the sake of the environment, chosen to make a show car variant of the (almost) too-good-to-be-true Elise. in this case it is called the Eco Elise Concept (they need to bulk up the talent in the naming dept., don’t you think?).

Not only have they done things like lower CO2 emissions, they have taken a holistic approach to the overall design and manufacture of the car itself.

Lotus has developed a cleaner manufacturing process using water based paint technology, and they also use renewable materials wherever they could. In addition to the use of eco-wool (whatever the Hell that is) for the upholstery they use eco-sisal (again wah??) for the carpeting.

They are also into renewable energy generation too, because the Eco Elise’s hemp hard top incorporates a set of solar panels that provide power for the car’s electrical systems.

I’m sorry, what?

That’s right, I said hemp hard top.

They also use hemp on the car’s composite body panels, spoiler and seats,

After all, I believe that it was Colin Chapman that said, “I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they’ve always worked for me.”

Oh no wait, that was Hunter S. Thompson.

Source: carscoop

Oh, you gotta love this .

Look, Lotus Esprits are very very capable cars, some of them are frighteningly quick.

There are also, however, somewhat, how can I put this delicately, fragile and temperamental.

Now, I have a friend, Rory, who disputes this. He’s owned 4 or 5 Lotus Esprits, and he says they’re perfectly reasonable and dependable cars … as long as you follow the proscribed maintenance TO THE LETTER!! Rory is a Canadian, so for him, being a good Lotus owner was no problem. I tried to explain that for Americans … well, you get the idea.

Anyway, one of the Esprit’s more troublesome areas is it’s engine. In Colin Chapman’s manic pursuit of lightness above all things, he decided that a good way to go was to put in a little four banger and squeeze the bejeebus out of it with a turbo that was cranking out enough boost to pressurise a nuclear submarine.

As you would expect, the engine, although giving prodigious amounts of power form such small displacement had the life span of a grenade.

So, one enterprising guy decided that an engine swap was in order. In this case, out with the four, and in with, drum roll please, an Audi 4.2 liter V8.

OK, now that I’ve stopped my maniacal laughter (and I’m assuming you have too), you got to admit it makes a certain amount of “sense”.

Light, compact, lots of naturally aspirated grunt … like I said, it makes a certain amount of “sense”.

More photographic evidence of the delightful lunacy after the jump.

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