2005 Lotus Elise Base Convertible 2-door 1.8l Beautiful Meticulously Maintained! on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Behind the scenes of Lotus' spectacular truck-over-F1 jump

A Lotus F1 car and the truck in which it's transported may both be powered by Renault and share a common JPS livery, but as far as size and performance are concerned, they're at opposite ends of the spectrum. So if you had to jump one over the other, you'd think it'd be a no-brainer to skip the single-seater over the tractor-trailer. Right? Well that may be the more logical conclusion, but it's not the way the Lotus team and its technology partner EMC decided to go for this latest promo. Instead they jumped the semi over the grand prix car. The stunt was obviously geared towards publicity, but while they were at it, they set a Guinness World Record for the longest truck jump at 83 feet, 7 inches. The previous record, according to Guinness, stood at 50 feet, 6 inches, and was set on MTV's Nitro Circus on November 17, 2008, by Gregg Godfrey at Rocky Mountain Raceway in Salt Lake City. That record stood for six years, but (as best we can tell) was set without the trailer attached, or the F1 car tracking underneath - which only makes this latest stunt that much more impressive. You may have seen the promo clip circulating the interwebs late last week, but we've included a making-of video below as well to show how the stunt team managed to pull it all off. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. News Source: EMC via YouTube (1), (2)Tip: Joe Lotus Renault Truck Videos F1 viral video semi lotus f1 team

Recap: 2013 Australian Formula One Grand Prix is all about the rubber [w/spoilers]

A pre-season full of talking points was swapped for a brand-new set of talking points after the running of the opening grand prix of the 2013 Formula One season. The consistency of the regulations from last year to this year and the triplicate dominance of Infiniti Red Bull Racing meant that no one would have been that surprised if the relative order of things remained the same. But teams found so many ways to switch things up that, in typical pre-season fashion, no one was ready to make any bets on in-season performance, and a couple of surprising players suffered the ignominy of getting it really wrong: McLaren knew it was in trouble from the very first test, while Williams drivers applauded their car as the best in years, only to have Pastor Maldonado call it "undriveable" on the very first day of practice in Melbourne.
And then there were those Pirellis, the Italian company talking up the fact that its super soft tires would only go off so quickly that it would force teams to pit at least twice during the race.
Even then, no one could have seen the first round of pit stops beginning on Lap 5.

Watch the Lotus Esprit evolve from 1976 to 2004

Seeing a model as long-lived as the Lotus Esprit evolve over time generally requires some clever photography or graphical work, kind of like this. This video doesn't require any of that trickery, though, because it features every single model year of Espirt in one glorious row of awesome British cars.
Taken at the 2013 Lotus Festival at Brands Hatch in the UK, it features Esprits from 1976 all the way to its last model year in 2004. It really puts into perspective the slow evolution of the mid-engined, wedge-shaped Lotus, as it went from a very 1970s design to something decidedly more modern.
We've got the full video below, which starts with a red 1976 model, travels down the line to a silver 2004 Esprit, and then all the way back to the original. Take a look, and let us know what you think.