Men and motors

I was a young petrolhead (mark II cortina) having freshly passed my test and I was out poodling about in the car when I was overtaken by a JPS Esprit. The rear view of these cars is quite breathtaking, and being a man with a certain amount of ambition and benchmarking to do in his life, I declared that I was going to own an Esprit before I got married. So, aged 19, my die was cast – I’d already become a Lotus afficianado aged 14 when I was allowed to sit in a Lotus Elan, and that combined with a wildly successful F1 team contributed to my choice. I think every petrolhead affiliates themselves with a supercar marque – some pledge undying allegience to Ferrari, some to Aston Martin, some to Lamborghini and some actually achieve their aim of owning a supercar. Now, in the grand scheme of things, Lotus were supercar ‘wannabees’ and had never managed to shake the tag of ‘kit cars’ despite some very attractive traits like handling and (your mileage may vary at this point, but stay with me) styling.

So, this young 19 year old made a vow that still haunts him. “I’m going to have an Esprit before I am married”. Well, guess what, I didn’t. Revision 2. “I’m going to have an Esprit before I have children”. I think you can probably guess what happened there. Revision 3 of the vow suggested that I was going to own an Esprit before I was 33. Douglas Adams wrote, “I love deadlines, I love the sound they make as they go whooshing past”, and this vow was beginning to resemble his comment. What happens at this point (it is 1995 by now) is that the Vow was modified to have slightly less concrete milestones. As soon as I did this though, Autotrader popped the “car of my dreams” (TM) into my peripheral vision, and without consulting anyone (the then-wife, bank manager or indeed my common sense), PTO208X was mine. I had done it, I was 34, and I owned a Lotus Esprit. This one, an S3 was a better bet than the fragile S1 and S2 versions, and wasn’t quite as garish as the Turbo – even then, I wanted that classic wedge shape, unfettered by louvres and skirts.

It stunk of petrol (leaking tank) and so began my long standing relationship with the Stratton Motor Company. Fixed, I drove it to work every day. In the summer it was unbearable, in winter, it was, well, less fun. It started to be left for a month at a time in the garage, and of course, it only had two seats so it’s use as transport for the family was a bit of a problem. It didn’t languish unloved exactly, but it did need more TLC than I had time to give.

It still gave me the thrill I had anticipated when I made the vow, but what happens after the vow, or, more to the point, the ambition has been fulfilled? When you make the vow, do you understand that you might be taking on something for the rest of your days? No.

Allow me to share something of the car with you. I am no motoring journalist, but I’ll attempt to give you a flavour of the experience. As you can see, it is blue – rather appropriately, it is Essex Blue. It has a blue velour interior (no leather anywhere), unkindly described as “muppet pelt”. It has a period stereo with chrome buttons and a green LED readout. It has silver and gold wheels. It has mistakenly had it’s bumpers and mirrors colour coded (returning them to matt black is number 3 on my list of stuff to do) but overall it is a proper example.

An Esprit of this vintage is so different from modern cars. Opening the car-park unfriendly wide doors, and lowing one’s sizeable frame into the unfeasibly small seat is easy enough, and once ensconced, you can drink in the little 70’s touches – the Jaeger digital clock, the Austin Maxi ashtray (to the right of you in the door sill, just behind the rather daftly placed handbrake). It is quite snug as the interior is dominated by a huge tunnel through the middle (which is of course the chassis, not a transmission tunnel as the engine is behind you), but it isn’t claustrophobic. It is at this point that I feel I can chuck a Barry White tape in the player, open the shirt to the waist and check my white flares for chocolate stains – it has an ability to transport you back to the 70’s. Later Esprits don not appear to have this effect, I think it is simply the velour acreage…

The next stage is to pull the choke out. This novel, yet effective device causes the carburettors to run slightly rich which aids starting. I turn the key in the ignition, listening for the sound of the small gatling gun behind me to finish it’s protest (fuel pump – the noise it makes when it is priming is quite comedic) and then I can pump the accelerator pedal twice. I pause, and turn the key. Sometimes, it will catch first time, if not then it will go on the second try. I leave it to settle for 10 seconds or so and then we are good to go. Reversing is always interesting, because of the appalling rearward visibility, but in the Esprit the mirrors are your absolute best friends, and you need to buy them a pint on a regular basis. At this point, having moved it out of the garage, I’ll move the choke back to halfway, and leave it to “warm up” for a few minutes.

The gear selection is a work of art – the lever is topped by a beautiful globe of turned wood, and it is no more difficult to select the gears than it is on a modern car. Which is quite an achievement when you consider that the rods, levers and cables that operate this do so through half the length of the car. So, into first and take off. As you pick up speed and work through the gears (short-shifting, and being gentle of course, because it won’t quite be up to operating temperature yet (does this sound like I am describing an old pre-war Morris?) you can hear the engine behind you, the note of the cam belt whine rising and falling like a banshee experimenting with it’s new-found voice for the first time. It is amazingly smooth to drive. This variant of the Esprit didn’t have power steering, yet the steering is never heavy (no great lump of an engine over the front wheels) but chats to you all the time like an over excited child on a sweetshop trip. Pulling up in traffic, a glance at your fellow road users give you a birds eye view of their doors, or if you have a lorry to your right, you can pass the time waiting for the lights admiring their wheelnuts. It is low, and that is when you begin to appreciate that not everyone can see you. Pushing the choke fully home, you can start explore what happens with the slightly higher engine revs. A spirited push of the loud pedal propels you forwards like a giant has just started to play with a matchbox toy – this is due to the fact that the car weighs next to nothing, so a much larger part of the engine’s ability is available for it’s primary function – forward motion. But even at the legal maximum, it still feels smooth, and nothing changes – the steering is still talkative, and you only have to think your way through a bend; the car responds with no drama or lean. Corners become irrelevant, and you begin to understand why people refer to the Esprit as a driver’s car. It takes a lot to unsettle it, and to use a cliche, the car always seems to be organically attached to the road. If you drive this car like you drive your daily car, you’ll never fully appreciate it’s capability. If you tune in to what the car is telling you it can do, you’ll find yourself able to negotiate roundabouts with the minimum of fuss, at speeds that you won’t quite believe. It is the quickest way to put a mile on your face.

The downsides to driving this car are that the noise and the heat in the cabin are a bit much especially on really hot days (1981 – air conditioning was something that was fitted to American and Japanese cars only) but it isn’t a showstopper. At cruising speeds (yes, 70mph, officer) in 5th, it is quiet enough to hold a conversation, and appears quite civilised. 100mph, I am reliably informed, comes up all too quickly and fuss free if you let it.

I write this in the knowledge that this week, my car comes back from hibernation – she has been at Strattons for some work, and hopefully, she will be available for some fun this summer. I can’t wait. Now, where did I put that Barry White tape…..