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Lotus Esprit S1
The Lotus Esprit is a sports car built by Lotus Cars from 1976 to 2004 at their Hethel, England factory. It has a rear mid-engine, rear-wheel-drive layout. Together with the Lotus Elise / Exige, it is one of Lotus' most long-lived models. The Esprit was among the first of the (near) straight-lined, hard-edge creased, and sometimes wedge-shaped, polygonal "folded paper" designs of the prolific, and highly successful Italian industrial and automotive designer Giorgetto Giugiaro. The Esprit's backbone chassis was later adapted to carry the body of the DeLorean car, another low-bodied, Giugiaro-drawn, sharp-creased, wedge-shaped sportscar design. In 1978, the first updates led to the series 2 and engined Esprit S2.2, made until the 1982–1988 Series 3 and Turbo Esprit models, that used a 1980 Giugiaro designed aerodynamic and aesthetic restyling package. The Lotus Esprit however, lived on through the 1990s, and into the 2000s. It received its first significant restyling b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lotus Cars
Lotus Group (also known as Lotus Cars) is a British multinational automotive manufacturer of luxury sports cars and electric vehicles. Lotus Group is composed of three primary entities. Lotus Cars, a high-performance sports car company, is based in Hethel, Norfolk. Lotus Technology Inc. (), an all-electric lifestyle vehicle company, headquartered in Wuhan, China, and operates regional facilities in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Germany. Additionally, Lotus Engineering, an engineering consultancy firm, is headquartered at the Lotus Advanced Technology Centre (LATC) located at the University of Warwick, University of Warwick's Wellesbourne Campus. Lotus was founded and owned for many years by Colin Chapman. After his death and a period of financial instability, it was bought by General Motors, then Romano Artioli and then DRB-HICOM through its subsidiary PROTON Holdings, Proton, which owned Lotus from 1996 to 2017. Lotus is currently majority-owned by Chinese multinat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Giorgetto Giugiaro
Giorgetto Giugiaro (; born 7 August 1938) is an Italian automotive designer. He has worked on supercars and popular everyday vehicles. He was named Car Designer of the Century in 1999 and inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame in 2002. He was awarded the Compasso d'Oro industrial design award six times, including a lifetime achievement awarded in 1984. In addition to cars, Giugiaro designed camera bodies for Nikon, ''Navigation promenade'' of Porto Santo Stefano, in 1983, the organ of the Cathedral of Lausanne (composed of about 7000 pipes) in 2003, and developed a new pasta shape, "Marille". He also designed several watch models for Seiko, mainly racing chronographs, as well as office furniture for Okamura Corporation. Influence on design Giugiaro's earliest cars, like the Alfa Romeo 105/115 Series Coupés, often featured tastefully arched and curving shapes, such as the De Tomaso Mangusta, Iso Grifo, and Maserati Ghibli. From the late 1960s, Giugi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oliver Winterbottom
Oliver Carton Winterbottom (24 February 1944 – 6 November 2020) was a British automotive designer who designed cars for Lotus, Jaguar and TVR. Early years Winterbottom was born in Ashford, Kent. His father was born in Oldham, Lancashire and attended school in Shanghai before coming to England and public school. His father took up medicine and qualified at St Mary's Hospital, Paddington where he met Oliver's mother who came from Lincolnshire. In 1952 Winterbottom was sent to boarding school in Staffordshire and at the age of 11 he was committed to becoming a car designer after having made some preliminary attempts to draw a racing car in 1952. He attended Denstone College like his father and had science on his curriculum, but also was a cross country runner and skilled marksman in the winter season. Towards the end of this college period his father accompanied him to Jaguar Cars in Coventry to discuss an apprenticeship. He was accepted as an apprentice automobile engineer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Colin Chapman
Anthony Colin Bruce Chapman (19 May 1928 – 16 December 1982) was an English design engineer, inventor, and builder in the automotive industry, and founder of the sports car company Lotus Cars. Chapman founded Lotus in 1952 and initially ran Lotus in his spare time, assisted by a group of enthusiasts. His knowledge of the latest aeronautical engineering techniques would prove vital towards achieving the major automotive technical advances for which he is remembered. Chapman's design philosophy focused on cars with light weight and fine handling instead of bulking up on horsepower and spring rates, which he famously summarised as "Adding power makes you faster on the straights. Subtracting weight makes you faster everywhere." Team Lotus won seven Formula One Constructors' titles, six Drivers' Championships, and the Indianapolis 500 in the United States, between 1962 and 1978 under his direction. The production side of Lotus Cars has built tens of thousands of relativ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mid-engine Design
In automotive engineering, a mid-engine layout describes the placement of an automobile engine in front of the rear-wheel axles, but behind the front axle. History The mid-engine, rear-wheel-drive format can be considered the original layout of automobiles. A 1901 Autocar was the first gasoline-powered automobile to use a drive shaft and placed the engine under the seat. This pioneering vehicle is now in the collection of the Smithsonian Institution. Benefits Mounting the engine in the middle instead of the front of the vehicle puts more weight over the rear tires, so they have more traction and provide more assistance to the front tires in braking the vehicle, with less chance of rear-wheel lockup and less chance of a skid or spin out. If the mid-engine vehicle is also rear-drive the added weight on the rear tires can also improve acceleration on slippery surfaces, providing much of the benefit of all-wheel-drive without the added weight and expense of all-wheel-drive com ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lotus Elite
The Lotus Elite name has been used for two production vehicles and one concept vehicle developed and manufactured by British automobile manufacturer Lotus Cars. The first generation Elite Type 14 was produced from 1957 until 1963 and the second generation model (Type 75 and later Type 83) from 1974 until 1982. The Elite name was also applied to a concept vehicle unveiled in 2010. Type 14 (1957–1963) The first generation of the Elite or ''Lotus Type 14'' was a light weight two-seater coupé produced from 1957 until 1963. The car debuted at the 1957 British International Motor Show, London Motor Car Show, Earls Court bearing chassis number #1008. The Elite had spent a year in development, aided by "carefully selected racing customers" before going on sale. The Elite's most distinctive feature was its highly innovative fibreglass monocoque construction, in which a stressed-skin Glass reinforced plastic unibody replaced the previously separate chassis and body components. Unlik ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tony Rudd
Anthony Cyril Rudd (8 March 1923 – 22 August 2003) was a British engineer involved in aero engine design and motor racing, with particular associations with BRM and Lotus. Early life and war service Rudd became involved with motor racing in the 1930s when he became an informal assistant to Prince Chula and Prince Bira's White Mouse Racing team. This inspired him to take up engineering as a career and family influence led him to take up an apprenticeship at Rolls-Royce. Rudd's engineering studies were interrupted by the Second World War during which he served in the Royal Air Force. Trained as a pilot, he flew Avro Lancasters on a tour of 30 operations. He became an expert in diagnosing failures in Merlin engines, but his main interest remained cars. Rudd resumed his engineering apprenticeship after the War and built an Aston Martin-based 'special'. Career Arrival at BRM The much-delayed BRM V16 engine was fitted with Rolls-Royce superchargers and Rudd was seconde ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
