In the 90s, this car was a frequent hero of criminal chronicles in its homeland in Britain, where Lotus Carlton was sold. According to a popular urban legend, one such Lotus with robbers in the cabin could even evade a police helicopter, but about that a little later. To begin with, I will tell you how in general such a unique car came into existence.
The history of the Lotus Omega began in 1986, when the huge concern General Motors bought a small, but proud British company Lotus. Bob Eaton, who at that time headed the European branch of Gem, was a fan of Lotus himself and knew that brilliant engineers worked there, who could make even “a cast-iron bridge” go fast. The idea to simply take Lotus emblem and glue it to Opel as a sports special version, was rejected from the very beginning, in fact the car which bears a proud sports name Lotus. So the talks about the joint project began, preferably on the basis of one of existing models of Opel, which at that time was the main brand of General motors.
The car which suited absolutely all was new at that time Opel Omega. The owners from General Motors gave the engineers of Lotus, one and a half year and extremely short technical task – make this car faster and believe me they have done it. They made a very complicated, hardcore supercar, which coincidentally had four doors and a big trunk.
The Omega could accelerate to a hundred in 5.4 seconds, which wasn’t just faster than all its peers, it put the big “four-door iron” on the level of purebred supercars like the Ferrari Testarossa. Really, the car opened in acceleration up to 200 km/h. In a test by British magazine “Autocar” that included acceleration to 100 mph and an immediate stop immediately after, the Lotus Omega was second only to one Ferrari f40 car, but those numbers had their price. The official top speed of the Lotus Omega was 282 kph.
The Lotus Omega is under the hood specifically made for this car – it’s a former Opel engine, a 3 liter inline six that Lotus has refined. They increased the displacement to 3.6 liters and most importantly they installed two Garrett and Intercooler turbochargers. The engine after all the changes that Lotus made: produces 377 horsepower and by the standards of the early 90’s it is a very serious figure.
For those who were first to pick up this car, respectively, a free service was offered, how to drive it properly, because it was extremely demanding to the driver.
On November 26, 1993, this Lotus Carlton, as the Omega was called in Britain, was stolen from a West Midlands home. Over the next few months, criminals used the Lotus to ram into stores at night. This is how the burglars stole £20,000 worth of alcohol and cigarettes. There was no way the police could catch up with the Lotus.
Out of the planned 1100 cars, they could make only 950, and by 1992 its production was “simply” stopped. And what facts do you know about this Supercar?