It’s easy to forget just how much of a juggernaut General Motors used to be. Never mind all the mainline U.S. brands from GMC to Oldsmobile to Saturn, the sheer number of acquisitions and diversification made by the automaker was a sight to behold. While it’s common knowledge that GM bought Saab and the rights to Hummer, if you go back far enough, the firm also bought almost everything else in its portfolio. It started life as a holding company, purchasing Buick, Oldsmobile, Cadillac, Holden, the works. Beyond that, it had stakes in Isuzu, Suzuki, Subaru, the list goes on. Of course, GM’s old habit of throwing money around like it’s Magic City resulted in funding for some weird cars, including a front-wheel-drive sports car from a storied British marque. Yep, the reborn Lotus Elan was developed and launched entirely when Lotus was owned by General Motors. How about that? Welcome back to GM Hit or Miss, where we peel back the layers of an automotive giant.
So how did GM come about owning Lotus? Well, this particular chapter of the brand’s history begins on Dec. 16, 1982, the day Colin Chapman died of a heart attack. The world of sports cars lost a hero, and Lotus lost its founder. Shortly after, Lotus itself wound up in some hot water over British government subsidies taken to help develop the DeLorean, and in 1983, Lotus was on the ropes and in need of a savior. Cue David Wickins, founder of British Car Auctions.
[Editor’s Note: One day we need to get into the rumors that Colin Chapman faked his death. Not today, but we really should. –JT]
He took on the struggling company and turned it around just far enough to sell a majority stake of Lotus to General Motors and Toyota in 1986. At the time, funding was running low to develop the ill-fated Etna project, let alone a new entry-level car, and fresh stewardship was necessary. By October of 1986, Toyota sold its stake in Lotus to GM, which allowed Lotus to then become a wholly-owned GM subsidiary by means of buying out other investors, and that’s where we pick up the story.
Spending The Big Bucks
Flush with an injection of General Motors cash, Lotus went to the drawing board for an entry-level hand-built roadster it could sell not just in Europe, but America too. In 1986, Peter Stevens cooked up a shape that was undeniably the look of the early 1990s — rounded, wedgy, and endowed with the joy of pop-up headlights. From a visual standpoint, it was a winner, and the M100 was born. This sports car project would use a fiberglass body and a backbone chassis in Lotus tradition, but it would then deviate from the classic formula in one key way.
Even if Lotus was alive and kicking, it’s hard to ignore the ’80s’ radical shift in the European performance car world. Open-topped rear-wheel-drive sports cars were out, hot hatchbacks were in, and front-wheel-drive was the new hotness. Despite the layout being primarily popularized for reasons of packaging and reduced cost of assembly, it brought some novel changes in technique to driving, including correcting oversteer using the throttle. Even though it had been part of the motoring kingdom for decades, the widespread adoption of front-wheel-drive was exciting. So, it should come as no surprise that Lotus decided to use front-wheel-drive for its next entry-level model. As per Lotus:
The ride and handling engineers found that for a given vehicle weight, power and tire size, a front wheel drive car was always faster over a given section of road. There were definite advantages in traction and controllability, and the negatives such as torque steer, bump steer, and steering kickback were not insurmountable.
In addition to the benefits Lotus saw in front-wheel-drive from a dynamics perspective, using that layout would allow the firm to source powertrains from GM partner Isuzu, naturally aspirated and turbocharged versions of the 1.6-liter 4XE1 four-cylinder engine. The latter turbocharged version made a stout 162 horsepower, perfect for a car that would only weigh 2,475 pounds in federalized spec.
In 1987, Lotus began building prototypes, and the firm would use GM’s money and facilities to test it in every condition from Arctic to desert climates. Two short years later, the car was ready, and it borrowed a name from a past legend — the Elan sports car of the 1960s. Right out of the gate, the Elan proved quick, with Car And Driver clocking a zero-to-60 mph time of 6.4 seconds for the U.S.-market version. What’s more, the Elan handled with traditional Lotus effervescence. As Car And Driver put it:
The five-speed transaxle’s shifter combines with the clutch action to deliver a seamless, almost effortless flow of thrust. In all transitions, from left to right, from speed to stop, and from stop to all ahead full, the Elan not only rewards smoothness, but encourages and abets it. Just as engineer Becker wanted, the Elan can be driven by anyone able to operate a manual-shift car. Better still, it can be enjoyed by those persons.
However, the magazine’s overall verdict on the car wasn’t entirely positive. While it was an impressive product in a vacuum, concerns over sales expectations lingered.
Lotus Cars USA hopes to sell 1000 new Elans each year, a number that would quadruple its sales volume. Are there 1000 buyers out there with $39,040 who want to spend it on a Lotus Elan? We aren’t sure. A Lotus has traditionally conferred exclusivity on its owner and given that owner certain performance rewards. The performance rewards given by the new Elan are considerable if not spectacular. Whether it adds enough exclusivity to justify its price remains something of a question.
Needless to say, Car And Driver was right in its suspicions. Although it’s easy to assume that the front-wheel-drive layout was the sole reason the Elan failed to make a splash, it was also going up against a god. While Lotus and General Motors were developing the front-wheel-drive Elan, someone else developed a Lotus-inspired roadster, and that one stuck with rear-wheel-drive.
The Brit-ish Roadster
Back in the late 1970s, well before Lotus even began development work on the Elan, American automotive journalist Bob Hall had an idea for a modern front-engined rear-wheel-drive sports car, and that piqued the interest of Mazda engineer Kenichi Yamamoto. Cut to 1981, and Hall was Mazda’s American product planner, while Yamamoto had moved up the ranks to become head of research and development. The time was right to pitch the idea again, and Mazda decided to give it a shot. It took several more years and a fight against both front-wheel-drive and mid-engined proposals to push the Miata through, but eventually, the rear-wheel-drive concept won, and in 1986, final approval was granted.
This little roadster traded heavily on nostalgia, borrowing styling cues from the classic Lotus Elan of the 1960s, but trading the character of English craftsmanship for the dependability of Japanese mass manufacturing. It’s name? The Miata. It was an instant sensation the moment it debuted at the 1989 Chicago Motor Show, and for the 1990 model year, it was unleashed on the American public for the low, low price of $13,800 — $25,240 less than what a turbocharged 1991 Elan sold for. Even with options, you could buy two Miatas for the price of one well-equipped Elan, effectively dooming the British effort in America. Just 559 Lotus Elans were sold in the states, and 3,855 in total around the globe. Meanwhile, Mazda sold 3,906 Miatas in America in 1990 alone, and the nameplate has gone on to be the best-selling sports car lineage ever. Ever.
The Korean Connection
In August 1993, General Motors sold Lotus to A.C.B.N Holdings S.A., a company with a fairly dull name but an interesting owner — Romano Artioli, the man behind the Bugatti EB 110. While Artioli continued production of the Elan, he had bigger plans. Lotus’ next entry-level car would be a mid-engined lightweight weapon named after Artioli’s granddaughter Elise. In 1995, Elan production ended, but that wasn’t quite the end of the convertible’s story.
See, Kia bought the rights to build the Elan, fitted a Mazda-derived engine, and sold a further 1,056 of them as the Kia Elan, or the Kia Vigato in Japan. Plus, Kia seemed interested in developing the idea further, as evidenced by a forgotten concept car, the KMS-II, which is pictured above. Unfortunate name, but it swapped the pop-up headlights for fixed units, added dramatically revised coachwork, added some roll hoops, and finished with a fresh set of alloys. Sadly, Kia never took the production-spec Elan to that next level, and in 1999, production of this front-wheel-drive oddity finally drew to a close.
The Way It Goes
It’s weird to think of the front-wheel-drive Lotus Elan as a General Motors product, but Lotus was owned entirely by GM at the time of its development and launch. Even though the General had little input on the car, it could’ve never happened without the firm. Plus, the Elan was arguably more of a GM product than the Saab 9-2x, and if a weird idea that went basically nowhere isn’t pre-bankruptcy GM as hell, I don’t know what is.
Would the reborn Elan have been more successful if it were rear-wheel-drive? Possibly, although if it kept that price tag of just under $40,000, it still would’ve been a hard sell. Why spend the big bucks on an authentic British sports car when you could get nearly all of the thrills from your local Mazda dealership at a fraction of the cost?
The front-wheel-drive Elan was inarguably a miss. Don’t just take my word for it, Lotus itself refers to the car as “ultimately not a commercial success.” Lotus planned to sell 1,000 per year in America, yet couldn’t shift 1,000 in America in total. Was it a bad product? Not necessarily. Reviewers liked driving it, but it was just the wrong car for the time, because a stronger competing idea came along and snatched the crown. Sometimes, you can do what feels like the right thing and still lose. That’s life.
(Photo credits: Lotus, Mazda, David Tracy)
Support our mission of championing car culture by becoming an Official Autopian Member.
-
Why The Pontiac Solstice Deserves Its Flowers: GM Hit Or Miss
-
How The First Front-Wheel-Drive Chevy Impala Nailed The Tricky Reboot: GM Hit Or Miss
-
Here’s How The Chevrolet HHR Proves That Catching Up Is Hard
-
Here’s Why The Cadillac Escalade EXT Deserves To Ride Again: GM Hit Or Miss
-
The Saturn Astra Died Too Soon: GM Hit Or Miss
Got a hot tip? Send it to us here. Or check out the stories on our homepage.
The post The Front-Wheel-Drive Lotus Elan Was Technically A GM Product, As Weird As That Sounds appeared first on The Autopian.
