All of the greatest supercars of their era began as showcases for new high-speed technology, and with the Etna, Lotus nearly made one of the most exciting tech-packed wonders of the 1980s. With a great booming high-rev V8, wedgy Italdesign bodywork, and F1-style active suspension, the Etna absolutely would have eaten a Testarossa for lunch and run down Countaches. Not only did the four-liter engine mounted behind the driver make a great-for-the-time 335 horsepower, the concept was true to lightweight Lotus form tipping the scales over a thousand pounds lighter than the strake-sided and now-iconic fighter from Maranello. It was intended to be the first Lotus with real grand touring chops, while kicking the crap out of any of the day's offerings on a race track.
That V8 was a pet project of Colin Chapman's, as he personally asked engineer Tony Rudd to develop an all-new Lotus-designed V8. Made all in alloy and designed as essentially two of the company's 900-series slant four cylinder engines plugged together (the inverse of Porsche making the 944 four-cylinder by slicing a 928 V8 in half).
Elsewhere in Hethel, the F1 team was working on a new active suspension system, which made its debut in the Lotus 92 in 1983. The system used a series of computer-controlled hydraulic actuators, which allowed for on-the-fly adjustments of ride height, pitch, and roll. The system was so effective it was eventually banned from competition. In an effort to show how tech-forward Lotus were, the company asked Giorgetto Giugiaro to whip up the Etna concept.
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Why Did It Have To Die?
While the Etna could have been a stunning addition to the supercar world, and perhaps kicked off the British hypercar era nearly a decade earlier than the XJ220 or McLaren F1, it wasn't to be. The car made the rounds in 1984, and while it left crowds mouth agape, and could have been a road and track star, the timing just didn't work out. Between fuel prices jumped as a result of the Iranian Revolution, the U.S. savings and loan crisis, and a general global recession in the early 1980s, demand for Lotus cars waned significantly, and the company took too long to react. The company was still reeling from Colin Chapman's death in 1982, and couldn't pull itself out of a spiral. When General Motors purchased the company in 1986 the Etna project, and the Type 909 V8 were shelved for later, and eventually sent to the scrap bin.
Only two Type 909 engines were built, and this is the only Etna in the world. For fourteen years the car was stored in a shed somewhere at Hethel and didn't see the light of day very often. In 1998 the car was offered for public sale and it eventually entered the collection of Lotus fanatic Olav Glasius. It was believed to be just a rolling design buck intended to show the way forward for Lotus at the 1984 British International Motor Show, but Glasius submitted the car to a thorough restoration and discovered a fully intact drivetrain onboard. The restoration involved ditching the fancy adjustable suspension in favor of refurbished Esprit bits so it could be driven.
In case you're the kind of person who wants to know what an early 1980s Lotus supercar would have been like to drive, you can buy the one-and-only Lotus Etna next week when it goes across the block at Broad Arrow Auctions' Monterey Jet Center sale to kick off Car Week. Broad Arrow reckons this one-of-one will go for between $250,000 and $400,000, so bring a pretty penny or two with you to bid. It sure is a looker, isn't it?
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