Lotus

Lotus Engineering Ltd. Was formed in 1952 by engineers Colin Chapman and Colin Dare.The first factory was situated in old stables behind the Railway Hotel in Hornsey, North London. Team Lotus, which was split off from Lotus Engineering in 1954, was active and competitive in Formula One racing from 1958 to 1994. The Lotus Group of Companies was formed in 1959. This was made up of Lotus Cars Limited and Lotus Components Limited. The company moved to a purpose-built factory at Cheshunt in 1959 and since 1966 the company occupied a modern factory and road test facility at Hethel, near Wymondham in Norfolk. The site is a former World War II airfield, RAF Hethel, and the test track uses sections of the old runway. A Lotus Formula One car driven by Stirling Moss won it’s first Grand Prix in 1960 at Monaco. Major success came in 1963 with the Lotus 25, which – with Jim Clark driving – won Team Lotus its first F1 World Constructors' Championship. Clark's untimely death – he crashed a Formula Two Lotus 48 in April 1968 after his rear tire failed in a turn in Hockenheim – was a severe blow to the team and to Formula One. That year's championship was won by Clark's teammate, Graham Hill. Formula One Drivers' Championship winners for Lotus were Jim Clark in 1963 and 1965, Graham Hill in 1968, Jochen Rindt in 1970, Emerson Fittipaldi in 1972 and Mario Andretti in 1978. Lotus beat Ferrari as the first marque to achieve 50 Grand Prix victories, despite Ferrari having won their first victory nine years sooner. Even after Chapman's death, until the late 1980s, Team Lotus continued to be a major player in Formula One. Ayrton Senna drove for the team from 1985 to 1987, winning twice in each year and achieving 17 pole positions. After the Lotus Elite of the 1950s, which featured a complete fibreglass monocoque fitted with built-in steel pickup points for mounting major components, Lotus found critical and sales success in the 1960s with the Lotus Elan. This two-seater was later developed to two-plus-two form (Elan +2S). Lotus was notable for its use of fibreglass bodies, backbone chassis, and overhead camshaft engines – initially supplied by Coventry Climax but later replaced by Lotus-Ford units (Ford block, Lotus head and twin cam valve gear). Lotus also worked with Ford on the Lotus Cortina, a successful sports saloon. Another Lotus of the late 1960s and early 1970s was the two seater Lotus Europa, initially intended only for the European market, which paired a backbone chassis and lightweight body with a mid-mounted Renault engine, later upgraded to the Lotus-Ford twin cam unit as used in the Elan. The Lotus Seven, originating in the 1950s as a simple, lightweight open two seater continued in production into the early 70s. Lotus then sold the rights to produce the Seven to Caterham, which has continued to produce the car since then. By the mid-1970s, Lotus sought to move upmarket with the launch of the Elite and Eclat models, four seaters aimed at prosperous buyers, with features such as optional air conditioning and optional automatic transmissions. The mid engined line continued with the Lotus Esprit, which was to prove one of the company's longest lived and most iconic models. Lotus developed its own series of four cylinder DOHC engines, the Lotus 900 series, and later a V8, and turbocharged versions of the engines appeared in the Esprit which was built from 1976 to 2004. A White Esprit also featured in the James Bond film “The Spy Who Loved Me”. Variants of the 900 series engine were supplied for the Jensen Healey sports car and the Sunbeam Lotus "hot hatchback". In the 1980s, Lotus collaborated with Opel/ Vauxhall Motors to produce the Lotus Carlton/Omega the fastest roadgoing Vauxhall car. By 1980, Group Lotus was in serious financial trouble. Production had dropped from 1,200 units per year to a mere 383. The combined reasons were that the world was in the middle of an economic recession and sales in the United States market had virtually collapsed. Looking to re-enter the North American market, Chapman was approached by young law professor and investment banking consultant, Joe Bianco, who proposed a new and separate United States sales company for Lotus. By creating an unprecedented tax-incentived mechanism wherein each investor received a specially personalised Lotus Turbo Esprit, the new American company, Lotus Performance Cars Inc. (LPCI), was able to provide fresh capital to the Group Lotus in the United Kingdom. Former Ferrari North America general manager John Spiech was brought in to run LPCI, which imported the remarkable Giugiaro-designed Turbo Esprit for the first time. US sales began to quickly jump into triple digits annually. Chapman died of a heart attack on 16 December 1982 at the age of 54, having begun life as an innkeeper's son and ended a multi-millionaire industrialist in post-war Britain. At the time of his death, the car maker had built thousands of successful racing and road cars and won the Formula One World Championship seven times.

EZ Power Steering and Lotus

EZ Power Steering produces power steering sets for the Esprit, Elise and Exige that make these cars much more pleasant in daily life. Many of our customers use their Lotus for "Track days" where the power steering is also a welcome addition to be able to steer more precisely.