www.adrianmugridge.co.uk

Lotus Esprit S3

I bought my first Esprit, a 1986 S3, in 1992 from Paul Matty Sports cars in Bromsgrove. I traded in my 1.4 Nova for it !!

WHY WON'T IT GO ?

The first thing I did was drive off, straight onto the M42 with the hand brake on. I stopped on the hard shoulder after 200 yards wondering why my new motor wouldn’t go above 40 mph. Then I notice the big red ‘BRAKE’ on the dash a smelt the burning. It went much better after I took the hand-brake off.  

HOW MUCH PETROL ?

The first petrol station I stopped at I stood proudly filling the tank, looking around with a big grin on my face and paying no attention to the petrol that will pouring out the filler.  I only stopped when another motorist shouted at me to stop.  As it came with a big bunch of keys and it had different locks on either petrol cap, I could only fill one tank to start with.  However, as the two tanks are connected with a balance pipe, the petrol gauge read full when I left the the forecourt and half full about 25 miles later.  I couldn't believe my eyes ! Half a tank of petrol gone in only 25 miles.  My first day of ownership was quite eventful for me !

I'M SPINNING ROUND !

As you can imagine, an Esprit is somewhat different to a Nova, and so I managed to spin it round twice in the first few weeks of owning it.  Even through it's over 9 years ago, I can still remember these incidents as if it were yesterday.

The first spin was coming out of Hove and up hill on a dual carriage way.  I always used to floor my Nova up this hill so I tried it in the Esprit. All was going well until I saw a sign saying left had lane closed.  I was a bit quick with the steering wheel and so as I moved to the right hand lane, the rear end moved quicker ! I yanked the wheel round the other way to try and stop it and not only did I stop it, but I over corrected and send the back end spinning the other way.  This time there was no stopping it and so I span round 180 degrees and was also on the downhill carriage way going backwards towards a few small saplings. When I came to a halt, I'd hit one of these trees and snapped it in half.  It was just luck that no cars were coming the other way, or that would have been the end of my car and also maybe me.

The second time I span was about 2 weeks later, on a wet road, going round a round-about near Worthing.  This time the back end went away and I span 360 degrees and up onto the grass verge.  There was no way I was going to hit something this time because the exit of the round-about was two lanes and the opposite carriage way was several yards away on the other side of quite a lot of trees.

CAN'T SEE - CAN'T PARK

After a couple of weeks of ownership I was wondering what the hell I had bought. I could hardly see out of it, I couldn’t park the bloody thing and it was a nightmare to start with a hot engine. However, I kept if for 4 years and it nearly ruined me. Huge servicing bills, large insurance premiums etc meant in went in my parents garage for nearly a year until I paid off my overdraft and vast credit card bills.

One of the major disadvantages I found with it was that other road users assumed it had shattering performance when it did not. 0-60 was 6.5 seconds with a top speed of 135 mph. It had 160 bhp and 160 lb/ft of torque, which is no better than an Astra GTE or Golf GTi. But I still spent ages washing and polishing it.