Before the Lotus Esprit became the Lotus Esprit…it was known as the M70. Penned by Giugaro (Italdesign) and quite a big step for Lotus as a company; It launched Lotus into the realm of supercars.
I have to say that the Series 1 Lotus Esprit is a pretty great looking car….and the M70 definitely looks like the purest expression of the design (obviously!).
Here are some original ideas thrown around for the M70:
(from Car Styling Magazine, April 1976: Lotusespritturbo.com)
So back in 2007 and 2008, there was a mystery supercar being spotted around the UK——people thought it was a Lotus or a McLaren prototype. I remember reading that it was the next generation Esprit, the early working prototype of the MP12, and even heard Noble being thrown around.
speculation:
http://www.autoblog.com/2007/10/05/mystery-supercar-may-be-all-new-lotus-codenamed-project-eagle/
Eventually, some people decided that it was some obscure, unknown supercar known as the “MCE MC1”, which has since dissappeared into nowhereland. Here’s the original article Car published on the matter:
http://www.carmagazine.co.uk/News/Search-Results/First-Official-Pictures/MCE-MC1-supercar/
pics from that time:
So i had forgotten about this car—–even though they ‘claimed’ it was something called the “Spectre” or “MCE”.
Yesterday, my friend Ron Southern, who is a fellow Audi TT owner and a De Tomaso Pantera owner and enthusiast, showed me this. THE SAME car exiting the grounds of the De Tomaso factory! Could it be that this is after all the ‘new’ De Tomaso Pantera? It certainly looks 100% the same as the 2007 car which was mysteriously being spotted around town. This video was uploaded on YouTube May 2nd, 2011.
Video:
So it seems that either that is a new Pantera OR a car that is being evaluated by the newly resurrected De Tomaso as a possible base for a Pantera.
IEDEI 