Lotus Carlton: The Wildest Sports Saloon of the 1990s

In the early 1990s, Britain served as the stage for fast Fords and hot hatches that dominated the country’s car scene. The Escort RS Cosworth and Peugeot 205 GTI are probably the two most iconic names from that golden era of British and European hot hatch culture, where no saloon could come close in performance or appeal. But when the president of GM Europe got tired of the company’s reputation for building boring, uninspiring cars, he turned to British carmaker Lotus for some help. 

Lotus was already an established brand and performance consultant for other carmakers when they were acquired by GM, and shortly after began developing the monstrous LT5 engine for the Corvette ZR-1. That same engineering ambition was then turned toward Opel, with a single goal: build the fastest accelerating saloon in the world. The result was the Lotus Carlton.