Lotus Esprit restomod revealed – meet the £500k carbonfibre Encor S1
British firm Encor has revealed the S1, a carbonfibre bodied, 400bhp twin-turbo V8 homage to the original S1 Lotus Esprit. Yours for at least £500,000.
Think restomod and inevitably a Singer springs to mind, their Porsche 911s having cemented themselves at the top of the resto-tree. There are others, of course, from Kimera’s rather lovely 037 tribute and anything Alfaholics produces. Yet despite many a UK company involved in these and many other similar projects, only now has someone taken this approach to a British motoring icon and the result is the Encor S1 Lotus Esprit.
This lithe, light - under 1200kg is the target weight - homage to the original S1 Lotus Esprit has been designed and manufactured by Encor, a UK start-up. Their first car is based on a Esprit V8 with a claimed power-to-weight ratio of 333bhp/ton. It’ll cost £430,000 plus a donor Esprit (anything from £30-60,000) and taxes. Don’t expect change from at least £500,000.
What you get for that not insubstantial sum is a thoroughly overhauled Esprit chassis with Eibach springs and Bilstein dampers set to Sport 350 specification and AP Racing sourced ABS brakes with six-piston front callipers. The wheels - 17-inch at the front, 18-inch at the rear and fitted with 245/40 and 285/35 Bridgestone Potenza Sport tyres - are billet machined aluminium.
Being based on a later V8 Esprit the front and rear tracks are wider than the S1, hence the slightly wider stance. Parked alongside the original the Esprit’s DNA is abundantly clear to see, the proportions within millimetres of Lotus’s original.
It’s a bit of a squeeze to fold yourself in and some might find the windscreen header rail a little close for comfort but it’s beautiful inside, the interior’s design a modern homage to the original. The S1 Esprit's instrument binnacle was an imposing injection moulded wraparound structure and dominated the driver’s view. Here it’s a single, slight and technical piece of machined billet aluminium with an LCD display showing elegant and simple dials for road speed, engine revs, fuel and water temps. And the fly-off handbrake has been ditched, replaced by an electric one.
The two spoke steering wheel is connected to the original Esprit’s hydraulic power-assisted set-up that’s been thoroughly overhauled. It feels just right to hold and look at, the seats - refurbished Sport 350 items - feel supportive and grippy in their new trim (which you can select in any colour and material your wallet can stomach). A central screen controls the HVAC, nav, phone, vehicle settings etc, while the carbon transmission tunnel forms the spine of the interior. The environment feels snug and somewhere you’d want to embark on some serious journeys in.
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Over your shoulder is the Type 918 3.5-litre twin-turbo V8 Lotus developed for the 1996 Esprit V8. When it’s extracted from the donor Esprit, Encor sends it to SWLC Performance who strip the engine down to its bare block, vapor blast it and build it back up again using all new components. The original cast pistons are replaced with forged items and a new electronic throttle body replaces the old cable unit, allowing for far better throttle control.
There are new high capacity fuel injectors and while the Garrett T25 turbos are retained, their internals are all new and include billet impellers and upgraded wastegates to allow for a higher boost pressure. There’s also a new exhaust system to bring the flat-plane crank V8 to life acoustically. The engine’s electronic brain is all new, too.
Along with the V8 engine the Esprit’s five-speed transaxle manual gearbox is also retained but like the engine it too is stripped and rebuilt using new components with first and second gear shorter than before. A twin-plate clutch is fitted and Quaife has supplied an ATB helical limited-slip diff. The mechanical overhaul alone is a six-figure cost.
Which isn’t the largest expense. That’s left to the carbonfibre bodywork. Born of 3D scans it is faithful to the S1 original but with far tighter tolerances in terms of the fit, finish and panel gaps. The sharp, square edges of the first Esprit have been softened, the need for clunky rubbers done away with. Primarily because unlike the original that required the top and bottom of the body to be two pieces secured together hence the thick rubber ‘pinstripe’, Encor has created single piece panels.
It’s an exquisite piece of automotive art, proportionally perfect and one that retains the original glass house but all new glassing including a heated front windscreen to banish the Esprit interior fog issue for good. The pop up headlamps remain a piece of design iconology. LED lighting technology allows for far superior and smaller components, which means the light units sit 50 percent lower when raised than the original, improving airflow over the car.
It’s not all about aesthetics, because the changes made have also allowed Encor to stiffen the Esprit and integrate a composite rollover protection frame. Larger carbon fibre twin-box sill sections - which are possible due to removing the mechanical handbrake - further improve torsional stiffness and replace much of the original steel structure.
All the lighting is LED, and it all sits in bespoke billet aluminium housings that are designed to manage heat around the lights whilst maintaining the aesthetic. The hard surface details sit complimentary with the soft edged design just right. An advancement in cooling technology means that no additional radiators were required, with the original home for these untocuhed but engine cooling vastly improved due to the use of more efficient units. The cooling system has also been engineered to improve engine cooling once it's been switched off, and there's a vent on the leading edge of the roof where it meets the tailgate that allows heat extraction from the engine bay.
In a world of bloated supercars it looks like a half-scale model of a modern production car. The original S1 and later V8 Esprits shared a near identical wheelbase length, hence why the Encor team has managed to create such a faithful homage to the original S1. Even in an empty design area the car looks small, delicate and something you can enjoy its 400bhp and a 350lb ft of torque without the need to use every inch of road available to you. It’s a classic car for the modern world.
The team behind Encor are seasoned industry professionals. Partly owned by Skyships Automotive, William Ives leads the technical side of the project with his company’s experience of developing electronic solutions in the world of aviation and automotive. Daniel Durrant is Head of Design and former Lead Design at Lotus responsible for Emira. Simon Lane possesses an enviable black book of customers who seek out cars such as the S1, given his time at Aston Martin saw him responsible for the British firms Q division and special projects, before moving to Lotus to oversee similar areas for the Evija hypercar, interest in Encor's first project is already strong with deposits in the bank. Although these aren't required to fund the car's development, with finances secured to compelte the 50 car run.
All three have a clear vision for Encor and an understanding of the high-end vehicle market, that today's high-end car buyers are stepping off the new super and hypercar treadmill and looking for something more bespoke, special and unique the timing feels very right; and the Encor S1 is very bespoke, special and unique. For the 50 who will take delivery of an S1 over the next two years they will be driving a very special car created by a team who have poured their passion and vast experience into a project that, on first exposure, appears to have left no detail untouched.
