The dramatic; wedge shaped Lotus Elite of the 1974was Colin Chapman’s big move up market. Sweeping aside the old order of Elans and Europas, its backbone chassis and coil spring suspension were pure Lotus in design and execution, and conferred fine handling and a good ride on this luxurious four seater sports car. The new 160 bhp twin cam engine lacked torque, but could still take the car up to 125 mph (200 km/h). The Eclat sister model was identical in all but its sloping rear roofline, which blended into a conventional bootlid. A bigger 2.2 liter engine in the S2 Elite/ Eclat of 1980 improved the torque, which was boosted from 140 lb/ft to 160 lb/ ft. With it came a stronger Getrag gearbox and a more up market interior. But this time the Elite’s wedge shaped styling was looking dated, and the model dropped out of sight in 1982, at which point the Eclat became the Eclat Excel, benefiting from the company’s new association with Toyota. The shape was much as before simply a bit rounded off at the edges, with a new side window profile and more headroom in the back. The five speed gearbox now came from the Toyota Supra along with several other components and the chassis was also galvanized.
Amazingly, thanks to the tie up with Toyota, Lotus was able to cut the car’s purchase price by more than $1000. The Eclat gained power steering as standard in October 1984, and a year later the Eclat name was dropped to become simply the Excel. For 1989 there was a more powerful Excel SE model, with 180 bhp from a higher compression version of the 2.2 liter twin cam engine, nudging the top speed to over 130 mph (208 km/h).
