Speculations: New Lotus Esprit to Borrow BMW’s V8 Engine

It has been almost four years since Lotus ended the production of the Esprit V8, and reports of its successor are in the air yet again. Earlier rumours claimed that Lotus was planning to release the new Esprit this year, but now it appears that it’s being pushed to 2010.

Spy photographers have caught various test mules for quite some time now, and from what we can see, the forthcoming car is indeed growing up well. In terms of design, nothing much is visible although we know it’s targeted to compete with supercars such as the Ferrari F430 and the Lamborghini Gallardo.

Latest report from Autocar suggests that the new Esprit will be powered by BMW’s V8 engine. This sounds promising enough, for we know BMW CEO Norbert Reithofer recently said that the Munich-based automaker has intention to sell its engine technologies to other companies. The most likely candidate for the power-train here would be the 4.4 liter V8 in the BMW X6, possibly tuned up to produce over 500bhp. Between 1000 and 2000 units will be built at the company’s home base at Hethel in Norfolk U.K.