Lotus Carlton – Fearsome at 30

This year the wheeled lunatic that is the Lotus Carlton turns thirty years old. And we can’t lie, that makes us feel really old. The Lotus Carlton hit the roads in 1990, and up until writing this, we were convinced that the ‘90s were last week. But, while we might be feeling the weight of time, the Lotus Carlton seemingly didn’t get the message. 

The Lotus Carlton was very much the answer to a question nobody actually asked. Yes, other brands had big, powerful saloons, but those cars (like the BMW M5) were expected. Nobody, however, was expecting Vauxhall to come and play. Though to say they came to play is a bit of an understatement. Vauxhall, with a considerable amount of help from Lotus, burst into the ‘fast saloon’ game and set the rules on fire. The Lotus Carlton wasn’t an exercise in ‘having a go’. It was a car that, from the off, dominated. 

What made the Lotus Carlton so bewildering was the car on which it was based – the Vauxhall Carlton. Make no mistake, Vauxhall’s big, rear-wheel drive execubarge was by no means a bad car. If you were in upper management in the late 1980s, you knew you’d hit your targets if you were behind the wheel of a Carlton. If it was in leather and wood-filled Diplomat specification, you were the king of your Barratt Homes cul-de-sac. But despite being a good car, it was not a car you’d associate with performance. Move up the model range and the Carlton leaned more into the luxurious rather than the lairy. Yes, there was the 3000 GSi, but only three people bought one. Writing this, I forgot it even existed. I had to edit that last line. The Carlton was not a performance car.

To use the BMW E34 of time as a comparison, the M5 was less unexpected because at least there was the 525i Sport, the 535i Sport and of course, the 540i. The M version made sense. The Lotus version of a Carlton… didn’t. The GSi version barely made any sense. It was like fitting nitrous to a wingback. 

Lotus knew this, and as such it pulled out all the stops when attacking the Carlton. If there was going to be a car with the Lotus name on it, it had to be proper, as per its own cars. As such, Lotus took a stock Carlton and binned most of it. It kept the body shell and the glass, and that was about it. 

First up, we have the engine. Lotus took a 3.0 straight-six out of a GSi model, laughed a bit, then made it better. The bore was kept to 95mm as standard, however, the stroke was increased to 85mm. The result was a new capacity of 3,615cc. The 24-valve cylinder head was kept, though it was modified for better gas flow and a reduced static compression ratio of 8.2:1 (over the factory 10.0:1). The cylinder block was strengthened to handle increased pressure, the crank was replaced with a forged item machined by Maschinenfabrik Alfing Kessler, forged rods were fitted as were forged Mahle slipper pistons. Oh, and Lotus also bolted two Garret T25 turbochargers to it, each running at 10psi. The result of all this? That’ll be 377bhp, 419lb ft and a top speed of 177mph. Figures that would make some modern contemporaries blush.   

On the back of the heavily modified straight-six, Lotus bolted a ZF six-speed manual transmission from a Chevrolet Corvette, which in turn sent power to both rear wheels care of a limited-slip differential from a V8 Holden Commodore. 

Of course, this was a Lotus-fuelled endeavour so there was no way the chassis was going to escape some tweaking. It is, after all, what Lotus is famed for. Happily, the Carlton already had a multi-link rear end and it was excellent. It was improved when engineers opted to fit the self-levelling system from the larger Senator – this gave the Lotus much better stability and reduced any camber change when under load. Obviously, the suspension as a whole was uprated with stiffer springs, more heavy duty shocks and of course, a lower ride height. 

Further improvements to the standard Carlton included the Servotronic power steering from, again, the Carlton. Rack and pinion would have been nice, but space and budget took that out of the running. Happily though, there were no budget issues with the brakes, and as such, the Lotus Carlton had AP Racing four-pots up front with 328mm vented discs, with twin-pot calipers and 300mm discs out back. For a big, old bus, the Lotus Carlton both handled and stopped with the agility of a much smaller car. 

As for the looks, well, acres of leather, a 180mph speedo, a bit more leather, all the electric toys and additional leather made up the inside. Outside, the Lotus Carlton gained wide, muscular flared arches (radiused at the rear), bonnet vents, rear spoiler and you could have it any colour you wanted, as long as you wanted Imperial Green. Wheels were going to be a split-rim design, but instead Lotus opted for one-piece cast units – 17×8.5 up front, 17×9.5 out back. 

On the road, the Lotus Carlton isn’t, at first, the animal you might think it to be. In fact, with all the leather it’s very much like being inside the Diplomat version we mentioned earlier. The clutch is set in treacle, which isn’t ideal, and there is more weight to the steering thanks to those 8.5 meats up front. But other than that, it’s just a Carlton. Until you lean on it. 

Cars of this era are famed for having more lag than a tortoise stuck in Evo Stik. The Lotus Carlton, despite its size, doesn’t. The two T25s kick in at around 1,500rpm and from that point on, all hell breaks loose. I drove it on a cold day in the snow, so rear wheels spinning was a given. However, when I found some dry tarmac, it was still more than willing to spin up the rearmost rubber – 419lb ft will do that. You have to feed the power in. YOU are in control, there is no electronic stability or traction system. If you disrespect the Lotus Carlton and drive like a cretin, it will punish you. That might sound scary, but the lack of any nannying management means you respect it, you listen to it and work with it. I certainly did, and soon my confidence in the big old beast grew. 

Pushing on, there is a lot of grip available. That said, you can push the back end out with ease, so you can’t go giving it a boot-full once you’ve cleared an apex. You can lean on it, but you have to feel the power, you have to be so very aware of the rear rubber breaking traction. Do that, get it right, the back will push out, but with control and ease. It won’t snap out. 

Through the bends, the steering can best be described as adequate. It doesn’t lack feel per se, it’s just perhaps not as sharp as you’d like. However, it does the job, though you can see why Lotus really wanted a rack and pinion setup in there. 

Bringing the behemoth to a stop is remarkably easy – the AP four-pots do a great job. They also give plenty of feel and confidence when pressing on, which is important in a machine like this. Especially given what it can do. On a private facility, with lots of straight road in front of you, the Lotus Carlton can be wound up to 177mph. There were, much to the chagrin of the motoring press of old, no limiters. That 180mph clock isn’t for show, it’s there for a reason. And even though the car I drove was some 27 years old, it felt like it would do that top speed should I have given it a chance. 

There was outcry when the Lotus Carlton arrived. The tabloid press complained that such a car was being built. The Germans, the masters of speed, were limiting their cars to 155mph. Vauxhall was not, nor would it. The Lotus Carlton was a broad-chested, slightly unhinged brute of a machine. The tabloids weren’t going to stop that. And nor were the police, neither figuratively or literally. They stated the top speed was bonkers, and they also stated they couldn’t catch them. And that’s PR gold for the boys at Luton. 

Only 950 Lotus Carltons were built. More were planned, but the combination of a hard recession and a then forty grand price tag meant it wasn’t a logical choice. Those who did take the plunge, however, laughed all the way to the bank – good examples are now north of £50,000. 

It was daft, it was too powerful and as I mentioned earlier, it was the answer to a question nobody asked. But man alive am I glad Lotus and Vauxhall did answer it. The Lotus Carlton stands today as a car built for the sake of it, built for fun and built to see what could be done. And it was done so, so very well. The Lotus Carlton, in my eyes at least, is and always will be the king of the super saloons.