Lotus Elan M100

The Lotus Elan M100 revived the Elan name when it was launched in August 1989, after 14 years without one. It was a two-seater convertible designed in-house by Lotus under General Motors ownership, which had bought the company in 1986 and asked for a new production sports car selling at least 5,000 a year. It kept the Lotus steel backbone chassis and lightweight fibreglass body, but it was the first front-wheel-drive Lotus, using a 1.6 litre Isuzu twin-cam four-cylinder engine in naturally aspirated and turbocharged forms with a five-speed manual transaxle, and its body was styled by Peter Stevens. Period reviews were largely positive, but the car was a hard sell against the far cheaper Mazda Miata. It stayed in production over two series from 1989 until 1995, with about 4,700 built, and Kia then bought the rights and tooling and built it as the Kia Elan from 1996 until 1999.