Before the Lotus Esprit became the Lotus Esprit…it was known as the M70. Penned by Giugaro (Italdesign) and quite a big step for Lotus as a company; It launched Lotus into the realm of supercars.
I have to say that the Series 1 Lotus Esprit is a pretty great looking car….and the M70 definitely looks like the purest expression of the design (obviously!).
Here are some original ideas thrown around for the M70:
(from Car Styling Magazine, April 1976: Lotusespritturbo.com)
Glorious….and good driving as well, for a change!
well not really….but this 911L racing in sweden circa 1969 has a big fat VW sticker right on the bonnet!
src: Early911Registry
Although it looks like a Bertone concept, it is not! In fact this is the 1969 Ghia Lancia HF Competizione concept. I don’t have a ton of information about the actual car; however I do know that it was based on the standard Fulvia HF platform and was FWD with the famous 1600 V4 engine from the Fulvia HF. However, a major difference was that the Ghia concept was even lighter than the standard Fulvia—-which made it even faster and (supposedly) with better handling. The idea was to possibly use this as a basis for a racing car that would have possibly be entered into Le Mans-type race events; alas this was not meant to be.
It was shown at the 1969 Geneva Auto Show; and obviously never produced.
src (colour photos): mauiboy
Today, we finally got a tiny little snow storm……..not really enough to get truly excited about—-but still good fun to do circles in Brooklyn!! A3 + quattro + snow tires = pretty much unstoppable great fun.
(1) I want it to snow
(2) I want an Ur quattro
This winter has been most disappointing in NYC. One little bit of snow….in October (?)…..my snow tires are waiting for more fun.
Rally car legend Juha Kankkunen likes to collect rally cars. Here is his fantastic collection! Beautiful.
Thanks to Cacti (QW) for the tip!
src: InsideLine
The Audi-Peugeot rivalry at Le Mans has been nothing short of legendary; fierce competition, intense driving, fiery situations, and 2 teams going full on to try to gain victories against each other.
Well all that is over, as Peugeot is dropping the entire endurance racing program, including Le Mans; effective immediately. Apparently the state of the global economy has taken its toll on the program; not surprising anymore to hear this is it…
I have always rooted fiercly for Audi in these battles…..and have often found myself scorning Peugeot on some of their, well, suspicious tactics. That being said, i’m very saddened that this competition is now over. Thanks Peugeot, for competing and for making Le Mans an event worth obsessing over….
links:
http://www.fourtitude.com/news/publish/Motorsport_News/article_7412.shtml
I, for one, will be sad when SAAB goes away. BringATrailer posted this last night about the sad story of SAAB auctioning their entire museum away this week. This collection includes all of their prototypes, including the legendary Ur Saab.
What a sad way to end the company——that being said, i’m sure Saab fanatics are beside themselves with excitement at the chance to land one of these Gothenburg beauties into their garages.
When I was 16, i was obsessed with the Saab 900. I’ll never forget that.
It’s hard to believe that the Renault 5 is celebrating its 40th (!) anniversary from its launch soon. Apparently, it is being reported in the french media that Renault are bringing a Renault 5 ‘redux’ back in celebration and that this is now ‘confirmed’….
A shame that Renault isn’t coming back to the US market….But then again, Fiat is pretty much ruining any chance of others trying to come back. If Fiat would have done well, the others would have made a run—-but not any more!
Here’s a rendering of the Renault 5 resurrection! (maybe)
Illustrated by Colin Anderson
why can’t modern car magazines be this creative with their covers? Instead they just put synthetic, advertising-like covers up. Blah.
src: motorsportretro
to buy old copies: motor book world
I can’t remember the last time I actually liked a Chevy—–i think i may be able to trace this to 1990 and my childhood admiration of the Cavalier Z24! ha.
Anyways, Chevy have introduced 2 concepts at the upcoming Detroit Auto Show—–one of which, the 140s is kinda worthless (and ugly)—–but one of them (130R) is strikingly good looking! Although there is a lot borrowed from the BMW 1-series upon first glance, i find that the stance and size of this RWD concept is basically how I envision the ‘modern pony car’. Since Dodge has re-introduced the (forgettable) Dodge Dart—–maybe it’s time Chevy brings back the Nova! Or not….
There’s something pleasantly retro about this design, and at the same time progressive. I think i feel the same way about the previous generation 1-series; a car I’ve always liked in coupe design.
130R:
Of course Chevy just had to ruin all the fun by putting a $75 interior in it! terrible.
the Alfa GTV6 belongs to Automobiliac, the E30 325i belongs to Motoring Con Brio, and the TT is mine. We took a nice drive to somewhere random; which culminated in me beating them handily at a friendly bowling match *cough*.
It’s no secret I love my 2 Audis. 9 years with the TT, and almost 6 months with the A3! Surely the only geek thing to do would be to collect die-cast versions of my cars and recreate my garage, right!?
To be fair, I have an A3 2.0T titanium edition—-whereas the 1:43 model i’ve bought is actually an RS3. To my defense they don’t sell the 8P RS3 in the US market or else I would have bought one. A second defense is that my A3 has the same wheels as the RS3 (titanium rotors) and spec’d out as close to an RS3 it could legally get in the US market cosmetically.
Volvo 263? When Volvo thought about trying to build a fastback!? This is a lost prototype/design study of a 263 Coupe/Fastback. This must be when Volvo looked over at the Saab 900 and thought “oi! we can do that”…..til they realised they couldn’t!
Sc: Volvo Tips and Nakhon100
During the time of the original Saab Sonnet 1, there were 6 cars produced by SAAB. Apparently one of those cars was taken by a SAAB designer/employee named Sigvard Sorenson—–to be transformed in his backyard into something quite peculiar! The SAAB Facett was born! This was neither an official prototype OR product from SAAB. This was just a product of one man’s passion for doing something unique. He built it right on top of one of the original 6 Sonett 1 roadsters.
Some interesting insight into the car from Saab History
“According to the Continental magazines, the Facett was another prototype being used by Saab to test the public reaction and taste. The truth is that they were way off the mark. From the beginningto end, the Facett was a backyard project and the only connection the builder, Sigvard Sorensen, had with Saab was that he was employed in the design department in Trollhättan.
The story begins when one of the first six Sonetts was offered for sale to the employees at Saab in the early sixties. The company had neither the available space or desire to store all the cars in a shed so they simply sold off the cars they felt were superflouos.
Sigvard Sorensen took up the offer and bought himself a bright green Saab Sonett Super Sport. The car was rather impractical, to say the least, and Sorensen started thinking about what he could do to make it more useful.
He began by removing the plastic body and went to work on the chassis. The fuel tank was moved from its odd position in the front wing to between the rear wheels where it was well protected against all types of accidents + standard procedure on all Saabs with the exception of the six Sonett Is.
The original engine was rejected in favor of a standard sport engine which was more suited to everyday driving than a temperamental, highly tuned racing engine. At this stage Sorensen realized that he would have to build a completely new body sheel and preferably with a hardtop. To get the car driveable quicker, he decided to use sheet metal instead of fiberglass.”
NOW! the story gets even more interesting. That original Saab Facett (pictured only at the TOP of this post) had been converted back into a green Saab Sonett sometime after by a different owner. All of the steel bodywork Sigvard had done to the car was removed and the car was restored back to being a roadster. HOWEVER, this owner (Rene Hirsch) commissioned a german company to replicate the chassis and the original Facett using the same body panels which were removed to re-create the roadster. So in effect, now BOTH can be seen together again…..the Green Sonett is the original car as SAAB produced it out of the factory—-the white Facett is a recreation of the custom Facett that Sigvard had made after buying the green roadster. 6 Saab Sonett roadsters exist; and now there’s a Facett to join them rather than take one’s place.
multiple sources were used for this article: Saab History, Madle, and a nice article by George Achorn which clarified some of the confusion @ Turbonines
