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I have always liked the Esprit, personally. I test drove a '92 SE and had check in hand for it; at literally the last minute I got cold feet. In retrospect I'm very happy I went with the Z instead, (mainly because I drive the Z a lot, and it has little down time). The interior of the Esprit is VERY awkward. The shifter is up extrememly high, and ventilation and noise dampening was a total afterthought in the car. They aren't very fast either to be honest, but they are dead sexy. The Steven's style Esprit is IMO one of the best looking cars. If you go looking for Esprits, I say look for the S4 or S4s (although the SE tends to be a *lot* more affordable). The early V8s had major problems, and hence they can be had for little more than an S4s. Lotus admitted to many mistakes on the early V8s, things like engine components, suspension, etc. The number one priority for Lotus when moving to the V8 was to keep the exterior overall the same, and that caused many compromises in the '97-98 models that were fixed in the latter years of production. The V8 was lotus designed and the early ones are notoriously unreliable (as you start looking for them, you'll hear this from almost every owner of one). If you really like them, I say go for it. Buy one now before the Elise starts selling, there might be a sudden resurgent interest in Lotus! Take down all of the VINs of each Esprit you see and call Lotus USA with them. They will literally chat with you for hours about the cars, they are very helpful and very honest. They didn't have any problem talking about maintenance records for any of the cars I was looking at. I have some contact info if you want it.
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