Esprit Production Numbers

The following production numbers were provided by Patrick Peal, ex-communications director for Lotus. In the table, HCPI refers to the high-compression engine variant of the Esprit, GMP4 refers to the cars built with the General Motors multiport fuel injection, and Interclr refers to the "SE" variants that have the Lotus Chargecooler engine.

Current Esprit production is about 150 cars per year. However, Lotus is also busy building the Elise roadster at a rate of about 3,000 cars per year.

It's interesting to note that, in 28/years of production, less than 10,000 Esprits were built. By comparison, Porsche builds more than 30,000 cars per year, Ferrari, builds between 3,500 and 5,000 per year, and Ford builds more than 10,000 vehicles per day! In fact, Ford sells more than 30,000 Explorer SUVs in a month! Now you can see why Lotus is a true limited-production, exotic supercar, and why it's so hard to find a dealer or parts for your car. 
 

Year

Esprit

Turbo

HCPI

GMP4

SE

S4

Sport300

S4s

V8

1976 

134 

               

1977 

580 

               

1978 

553 

               

1979 

474 

               

1980 

80 

57 

             

1981 

185 

116 

             

1982 

160 

205 

             

1983 

84 

343 

             

1984 

104 

418 

             

1985 

127 

262 

62 

           

1986 

72 

136 

246 

           

1987 

78 

186 

298 

           

1988 

176 

387 

375 

120 

         

1989 

90 

103 

 

121 

563 

       

1990 

22 

51 

 

698 

       

1991 

 

 

113 

       

1992 

 

   

172 

   

1993 

       

62 

233 

25 

   

1994 

         

339 

30 

 

1995 

         

46 

331 

 
1996                 260
1997                 177
1998                 241
1999                 197
2000                 219
2001                 N/A
2002                 N/A
2003                 N/A
2004                 N/A

Total

2919 

2274 

881 

252 

1608 

622 

64 

332 

1094