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Lotus Omega... old school baby

Posted: Mon Jul 17, 2006 7:45 pm
by Victor Meldrew

Posted: Tue Jul 18, 2006 1:07 am
by Rich H
Old school no nonsense brute force and ignorance.
Speeded up and in kmh but even then :twisted:

Posted: Tue Jul 18, 2006 2:12 am
by Victor Meldrew
RICHARDHUMBLE wrote:Old school no nonsense brute force and ignorance.
Speeded up and in kmh but even then :twisted:
not so sure about the speeded up part.... :)

Posted: Tue Jul 18, 2006 8:36 am
by Bada Bing!
Yep, it's running in real time from what I can gather. The Carlton is just so much quicker than the police car. I wouldn't even think it was a traffic car as it struggles to hit 120mph.

Posted: Tue Jul 18, 2006 9:15 am
by Rich H
Time sig in the vid is running faster than it should....

Posted: Tue Jul 18, 2006 3:33 pm
by The_Rossatron
Lotus Carltons are the biz!

Posted: Tue Jul 18, 2006 8:40 pm
by simon
It did looked speeded up to me.
And what's with this 'omega' pish? It's a Carlton!!

Posted: Wed Jul 19, 2006 10:26 am
by Tom
simon wrote:It did looked speeded up to me.
And what's with this 'omega' pish? It's a Carlton!!
is a lotus carlton similar to a vauxhall calibra?? :oops:

think i'm right in saying that lotus did the calibra......

Posted: Wed Jul 19, 2006 10:31 am
by Shug
Tom wrote:
simon wrote:It did looked speeded up to me.
And what's with this 'omega' pish? It's a Carlton!!
is a lotus carlton similar to a vauxhall calibra?? :oops:

think i'm right in saying that lotus did the calibra......
Pish, utter.... <BG>

Calibra was a rebodied FWD Cavalier (and truly horrible to drive because of that) Carlton was a size bracket up and RWD (Lotus version had mentalist 360bhp twin-turbo straight six and held the record for fastest 4 door saloon for years - 180odd mph)

Posted: Wed Jul 19, 2006 10:31 am
by Tom
too late. thanks shug..... :oops:

Posted: Wed Jul 19, 2006 10:32 am
by Shug
Tom wrote:dug around a bit. seems like both were cavalier based. calibra new version of carlton??
Read - then post ;) :lol:

Posted: Wed Jul 19, 2006 10:38 am
by Tom
we were both typing at the same time.

The confusion arose in my head because when i was about 10 or 11, a film crew stayed at my folks place with the then unreleased Vauxhall Lotus Calibra (they called it) in a covered trailer. They were shooting the marketing pictures for it. So for all these years i've been harbouring the misplaced thought that Lotus did the Calibra. Glad to finally clear things up, a mere 16 years later..... :shock: :oops: :?

Posted: Wed Jul 19, 2006 10:46 am
by Shug
Tom wrote:we were both typing at the same time.

The confusion arose in my head because when i was about 10 or 11, a film crew stayed at my folks place with the then unreleased Vauxhall Lotus Calibra (they called it) in a covered trailer. They were shooting the marketing pictures for it. So for all these years i've been harbouring the misplaced thought that Lotus did the Calibra.
Heh, I know mate :)

TBH, I'm not sure if Lotus had any involvement with the Calibra - they may have done chassis tuning (as they've done on a huge amount of GM product) I'm pretty sure that they would not place it too high on the CV, mind you. The thing that nailed it finally was when one of the first fly-on-the wall docs about sales reps (in the mid-nineties) featured a nauseating twat in a Cavalier (2.0 GL, or something, as he neeeeeeded to tell you every five minutes) held the Calibra as his dream car! :puke

To be fair, it was a gorgeous design and still looks fresh today, but unfortunately it was fur coat, no knickers..... :(

The Lotus Carlton, on the other hand, was a hero car for me, chiefly as it caused the Daily Mail to have an embolism about it's top speed! Anything that anti-establishment, within an outwardly respectable suit was always gonna get me with 'hello'!

<BG>

Posted: Wed Jul 19, 2006 10:53 am
by The_Rossatron
The Calibra had Lotus 'tuned' suspension at some point maybe not on all models though. Think they did the mk1 Corsa too later in it's life.

Posted: Wed Jul 19, 2006 11:17 am
by Shug
The_Rossatron wrote:The Calibra had Lotus 'tuned' suspension at some point maybe not on all models though. Think they did the mk1 Corsa too later in it's life.
Not a lot of people know that Lotus Engineering have input in quite a silly high percentage of engines on the road today - most of GM's output from the last 20 years have seen Lotus work at some stage.

They tune chassis for many manufacturers too - most in secrecy. But their links with GM (and obviously Proton) are well documented. Versions of Vectra, Astra, Corsa have all had Lotus Engineering input.....

There's a limit on what they can put their name to, mind you. Proton obviously have the rights to use it at the mo, but it seems Vauxhall have paid to use it in advertising reasonably recently, even if they don't badge any cars as Lotus versions.

You didn't think they stayed afloat on car sales did you? ;) :lol: