By Robert Emslie
As incongruous as it may seem, both of these cars are connected by a simple alloy thread, that being the involvement of Lotus in their making. Interestingly, one car represents an era when the company would drop their motors into another maker’s cars, while the other represents the polar opposite.
Image: ©2013 Hooniverse/Robert Emslie, All Rights Reserved
Jeff Glucker
Somewhere in between is the "Joe Isuzu" era, when Lotus transplanted it's suspension into the Impulse.
What happened to Lotus' ability to design engines? The Toyota ones they use don't even get different heads or pistons and what happened to the V8 in the last Espirit? or the ZR1 C4?
They do it for other companies, who put their own branding on it.
But which other companies? No-one seems to mind admitting that they got Cosworth or Ricardo involved, they have even used it as a branding opportunity in Cosworth's case, but (not all that) lately all I've seen the little Lotus badge appended to have been sundry Isuzus- and that was for suspension work. What other engines have they been involved in?
Probably has a lot to do with how much is involved in getting an engine emissions certified. If you can use an engine that already passes you can save $$$$.
Emissions certification has been a headache for a long time. The Cosworth Vega was supposed to launch for '74, but a burnt valve on one of their test engines caused them to fail the 50,000 mile emissions testing, delaying production for a year.
"The Ladies' Dress Shoppe", as Clarkson calls it.
Well, to be fair, the Twin-Cam in that Cortina has a more than a little Ford DNA in it.
And three camshafts!
Sorry to nitpick, but that isn't a Lotus Cortina pictured… It's a 65-66 Ford Cortina GT that had no Lotus involvement. Only the GT had trim around the flash, and Mk1 Locorts only came in white/green.