Carwatch #1 - Lotus Carlton
The name of this feature was originally going to be ‘Rare, exotic or crap?’ as the featured cars would fall into one (or more) of these catagories. Normally the cars would be gems that were spotted on the street, but let’s start with one from the archives…
Take a boring German four-door saloon, bolt a pair of turbochargers onto the engine, fit a new six-speed gearbox and embellish with a subtle aerodynamic bodykit to produce a modern classic. That’s what Lotus Engineering did to the Vauxhall Carlton, known as the Opel Omega in mainland Europe, back in 1990. Standard Carltons were delivered straight from the production line to Lotus’ factory where the cars were stripped and the engine, gearbox, suspension and brakes were heavily modified. Finally they were painted in bespoke Imperial Green before being delivered to eager customers across Europe. Only 950 examples were produced over two years and today low mileage, well maintained examples are very rare and highly sought after. This is no wonder, as for many years this was the fastest four-door saloon in the world, outclassing contemporary performance cars such as the BMW M5.
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Carwatch rating: Like.
