Exotic Car

Super car is a term generally used for ultra-high-end exotic cars, whose performance is superior to that of its contemporaries. It has been defined specifically as "a very expensive, fast or powerful car with a centrally located engine", and stated in more general terms: "it must be very fast, with sporting handling to match," "it should be sleek and eye-catching" and its price should be "one in a rarefied atmosphere of its own." but the proper application of the term is subjective and disputed, especially among enthusiasts.

An advertisement for the Ensign Six, a 6.7 L (~409 cu in) high-performance car similar to the Bentley Speed Six, appeared in The Times for 11 November 1920 with the phrase "If you are interested in a super car, you cannot afford to ignore the claims of the Ensign 6." The Oxford English Dictionary also cites the use of the word in an advertisement for an unnamed car in The Motor dated 3 November 1920, "The Supreme development of the British super-car." and defines the phrase as suggesting 'a car superior to all others'.

The phrase Super car did not become popular until much later and is often said to have has its revival originated with British motor journalist L. J. K. Setright writing about the Lamborghini Miura in CAR Magazine in the mid-1960s. The magazine claims to have "coined the phrase" although it was also used in May 1965 by the American magazine Car Life, in a test of the Pontiac GTO. By the 1970s and 1980s the phrase was in regular use, if not precisely defined. During the late 20th century, the term Super car was used to describe "a very expensive, fast or powerful car with a centrally located engine", and stated in more general terms: "it must be very fast, with sporting handling to match", "it should be sleek and eye-catching" and its price should be "one in a rarefied atmosphere of its own".

Super Cars

Lotus Car is a British manufacturer of sports and racing cars based at Hethel, Norfolk, England. The company designs and builds race and production automobiles of light weight and high handling characteristics.

It is currently owned by Proton, the Malaysian carmaker, who took Lotus over in 1994 on the bankruptcy of its former owner Bugatti.

The company was formed as Lotus Engineering Ltd. by engineer Colin Chapman, a graduate of University College, London, in 1952. The first factory was in old stables behind the Railway Hotel in Hornsey, North London. Team Lotus, which was split off from Lotus Engineering in 1954, was active and competitive in Formula One racing from 1958 to 1994. The Lotus Group of Companies was formed in 1959. This was made up of Lotus Cars Limited and Lotus Components Limited which focused on road cars and customer competition car production respectively. Lotus Components Limited became Lotus Racing Limited in 1971 but the newly renamed entity ceased operation in the same year.

The company moved to a purpose built factory at Cheshunt in 1959 and since 1966 the company has occupied a modern factory and road test facility at Hethel, near Wymondham. This site is the former RAF Hethel base and the test track uses sections of the old runway.

Chapman died of a heart attack in 1982 at the age of 54, having begun life an innkeeper's son and ended a multi-millionaire industrialist in post-war Britain. The car maker built tens of thousands of successful racing and road cars and won the Formula One World Championship seven times. At the time of his death he was linked with the DeLorean scandal over the use of government subsidies for the production of the De Lorean DMC-12 for which Lotus had designed the chassis.

Lotus Car