LOTUS OMEGA / CARLTON. La BERLINA PROHIBIDA

🔷 The Vauxhall Lotus Carlton was born during the heyday of super sedans in the 1990s. BMW was conquering the youth with its M5 E34, Mercedes catered to purists with the E500, and Opel/Vauxhall also wanted a piece of the pie. But, since the lightning bolt brand didn't have a high-performance division at the time, they decided to join forces with the British sports car manufacturer Lotus. 🔶 The Lotus engineers in Hethel, who, by the way, were the best in the world—a fact few people acknowledge—applied their performance expertise to the Carlton. They took the 3.0-liter inline-six and increased its displacement to 3.6 liters. And as if that weren't enough, they added two turbochargers, one for every three cylinders. Back in 1989, nobody could have predicted that two British manufacturers would join forces to create a sedan that could reach 100 km/h in 5.1 seconds. And even less so, that this sedan would rival such legendary supercars as the Ferrari Testarossa. When I say 🔷 Born under the internal designation Tipo 104, when it first appeared on the market in 1990, it was touted as the fastest four-door production car in the world, since a top speed of 285 km/h was more than enough to put many supercars of its generation to shame.