LOTUS ESPRIT S4S

Year of manufacture 1996 Recorded mileage 64,169 Asking price £39,995 Vendor Royston’s Automotive Classic Evolution, Handcross, West Sussex; 01444 400996; roystonsclassic.co.uk WHEN IT WAS NEW Price £52,995 (1995) Max power 300bhp Max torque 290lb ft 0-60mph 4.6 secs Top speed 168mph Mpg 25

Never mind this month’s cover stars, the Lotus Esprit was my dream machine when I was a lad. All it took to fall for Norfolk’s most famous export (our own Jack Phillips aside) was a motor show brochure donated by my Latin teacher.

The facelifted ‘X180’ Esprit had just launched and I couldn’t believe the stats: 150mph and 0-60mph in around five seconds, from a 2.2-litre turbo ‘four.’ Then a friend’s dad bought one. I got my first ride and it was as thrilling as I imagined.

Everyone has a favourite Esprit. For the purist it’s likely the S1, which made just 160bhp but weighed a mere 1980lb for a seductive combination of pace and balance. Perhaps it’s the 1980s aggression of the first ‘Giugiaro’ turbos, the discretion of the early Peter Stevens restyle, or the fast but fragile V8s, with a twin-turbo, flat-plane-crank powerplant designed in-house at Hethel.

I’ve been lucky enough to drive nearly every variant over the years, including a generation-spanning quartet in one day (C&SC, January 2003), which left me with a firm favourite: the S4S. The two-decade-old design received a nip-andtuck for the 1993 S4, and a year later the S4S mated that new look with the most potent twin-cam four-pot yet, a 300bhp screamer from the Sport 300.

Unlike that stripped-out homologation model, however, this one featured all the creature comforts expected of a 1990s supercar, from endless gadgets to air-con and soft Connolly leather (beige, in this case). It also had the greatest luxury of all in an Esprit: space, courtesy of a longer cabin brought in for the 1992-on SE. On the outside some subtlety was lost with a huge carry-handle spoiler from the Sport 300, plus 245mm front and 285mm rear tyres wrapping OZ split-rim alloys – topped off on this car by rather sudden Calypso Red paint.

The S4S was a blinding driving machine with fantastic brakes, incredible grip and huge performance, delivered more progressively than the whizz-bang of earlier turbos. It was also the first Esprit with power steering which, far from robbing the helm of feedback, simply made those messages easier to read.

This example has been enjoyed by just two owners, the most recent for the past 20 years, and has a fully stamped service book in its thick history file. The real joy of the S4S was the way it returned the sense of agility delivered by those original S1s – albeit now with double the power and a maximum speed close to 170mph. That this car is available for about half the price of a top example of its ancestor makes it all the more appealing.