1989 Lotus Esprit Se Low Miles 24k Show Car Super Clean!! 2.2 Turbo 5 Spd on 2040-cars

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Tesla Model S Easter egg turns car into submarine

When thinking about Elon Musk, the first thing that comes to mind may not be his sense of humor. However, the Tesla boss is embedding a pretty funny Easter egg in the company's cars that references a part of his own collection. Musk famously purchased the Lotus Esprit submarine from the James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me for about $967,000 in 2013. At one point, he even intended to install a Tesla powertrain and make it fully transformable. From anyone else that plan would sound like pure fantasy, but Musk has the money and the means to make it happen, if he wants. Now, every Tesla Model S driver gets to share in just a little of that very cool ownership experience. A person on YouTube filmed how to access the Easter egg, and it's extremely easy. Just hold down the T on the infotainment screen for a few seconds, enter the appropriate code 007 and check the suspension settings page. Instead of seeing a Model S, Bond's submersible Esprit now appears. As another cool touch, users can set the vehicle's depth in leagues, and the options max out at 20,000. This is almost certainly a subtle reference to the classic story 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Maybe someday Musk can get the Lotus' conversion complete, and we can see it working for real. Until then, this a neat way to show the unique car off. Related Video:

Lotus planning new 400-hp 2-Eleven successor [UPDATE]

UPDATE: A previous version of this post suggested the Evora's new 400-horsepower V6 might find its way into the Elise, but sources indicate that it wouldn't fit. The text below has been updated accordingly. It's been nine months since Jean-Marc Gales took over as the new head of Lotus, and as Top Gear recently discovered, the former Peugeot chief is cleaning house. Gales doesn't put himself in the camp of past Lotus execs (Dany Bahar chief among them) who've reasoned that the company can only succeed if it introduces new and more upscale products. Instead he's focusing on the brand's existing models – namely the Elise, Exige and Evora – but don't think that means they'll just be skating by. On his watch, Lotus recently introduced the Elise S Cup (apparently the first model it ever introduced on schedule) and the new Evora 400 (ahead of schedule), and there are plans for more. Though Gales apparently has no intention of producing an engine in-house, the Toyota-based 3.5-liter supercharged V6 – now producing 400 horsepower and 302 pound-feet of torque – is slated to be slotted into the Exige as well. Perhaps most exciting, though, is the prospect of a successor for the 2-Eleven. That windowless speedster was the most extreme interpretation of the Exige, packing just 252 hp but weighing less than 1,500 pounds. The next version would weigh considerably more – closer to 2,000 pounds – but pack that new 400-hp engine to drive the power-to-weight ratio through the roof (if it even has one) in pursuit of a Nurburgring lap record. Don't expect it to switch to carbon fiber construction, though: Like his colleagues at Ferrari, Gales is convinced that aluminum is the way to go, offering comparable weight-saving benefits but at a fraction the cost. To ensure that these new products don't disappear in a cloud of tire smoke and irrelevance, Gales is also overhauling the way Lotus markets its cars. For one thing, he's opening new showrooms in key markets like Paris, Berlin, Monte Carlo and Abu Dhabi. For another, he's making sure Lotus actually keeps a database of its customers, something which it almost unbelievably didn't bother with until now. Those might not be the most exciting aspects of the business, but if that's all it will take to keep Lotus in the game, we're all for it. Featured Gallery Lotus 2-Eleven track car View 18 Photos News Source: Top GearImage Credit: Lotus Lotus lotus 2-eleven

Lotus to move immediately forward with new variants rather than new models

It took 1.5 years, but a DRB-Hicom managing director told Malaysia's Business Times that the company has "cleaned up" the situation at Lotus from its finances to its marketing and image. The clean-up job we're most interested in, the product portfolio, will be demonstrated by financial investment in a three-year program of "variants based on existing products - variants with improved technology, improved performance."
You'll notice mention of the word "variants" three times but no mention of the phrase "new models." We knew that with the death of the five-new-model turnaround plan dreamed up by ex-Lotus CEO Dany Bahar DRB-Hicom said there'd only be three distinct lines - which is the current number - but during Lotus' trouble-plagued 2012 it sold just 80 cars all year, and for a tense spell it really wasn't clear if DRB-Hicom would commit to even keeping Lotus alive, much less investing in it.
It's not clear how much is being put into in the three-year program of offshoot models like the 345-horsepower Exige S Roadster (pictured), but it might be fair to say this is where Lotus' revival really begins, and does so with baby steps. Autocar reports that DRB-Hicom has already put 100 million pounds into the English carmaker, and as its issues were worked through Lotus has sold almost as many cars in the first five months of this year as it did all of last. That has not only convinced the Malaysian minders to throw more money its way, but the UK's business secretary has also approved a 10-million-pound investment into Lotus through the Regional Growth Facility program.