008 Julian W wrote:Adding another spanner to the works - The Sultan of Bruneii had another Pinninfarina Chronos made for him personality prehaps it used another so scrapped Lotus?
Hmmm...But Pinnifarina themselves state that they built only one functioning car from Lotus V9 Julian and they are supposed to still have possession of it in their museum in Italy. Yes, this Chronos concept vehicle was painted in a variety of different colours
(red, sliver, black and yellow to name a few) so it looks like there was more than one prototype doing the publicity rounds....but only this one full sized car existed.
Without any solid proof of photographs, motoring magazine articles, official paperwork or GM brochures being offered as evidence of this happening....then the Sultan's car is a replica/fake built on an unknown platform or even worse this story is just an old wives tale and no such car actually exists. I would also suggest if you don't already have one that you get yourself a copy of the Ian Adcock Lotus Carlton book....
because pages 148 to 155 are all about the Pinnifarina Chronos where it tells us all about how the concept was first seen in Detroit Auto Show in early 1991 when it had no functioning engine before it goes on stating
"Serious production was thought unlikely" because
"While it is innovative it would surely cause eyebrows to be raised should the Chronos ever need type approval" and also
"The complexity of just the Chronos door would present any volume manufacturer with many problems which could not be solved without massive tooling investment"...All of these statements I've taken from the Adcock book make the Chronos sound like a pure concept car design study to me.
I'm sorry to come across as such a sceptic here Julian, its just that I've been told so many wonderful and colourful stories over the last twenty or so years...you'd be surprised just how many figments of imagination and gossip become quoted as facts over time. The Lotus Carlton Estate and Lotus Carlton Police cars as just two excellent examples here in the UK of fantasy stated as fact thanks to the marvels of the internet!!!!
008 Julian W wrote:As for Opel cars been crashed in Australia - This has been a common thing that GM Australia does after it used and tested vehicles - many of which were used as basis to develop local models - Talking to John Marschal ex GM NZ this was the policy - Cars were not allowed to be sold as they may be issues on safety
I'm not doubting that this actually happens but please could you explain to me why Lotus would send one of their pre-production prototypes around the World to Australia when
a) It was never designed or intended to be sold in the Australian car market and
b) The first Global recession had kicked in so the original 1800 build number was initially knocked back to 1150 units before being capped off at just 950 in 1992 becuase GM had such a hard time trying to sell these vehicles in the nine country's that it was intended to be sold in?? As a relatively unknown brand in Oz at that time, how many Australians do you personally know that would spend $77,188.60 AUD on a European car they'd never heard of back in the 1990's Julian?
For those who don't know these country's they were :-
A = Austria
B= Belgium
C= Switzerland (these Lotus Omega's had 2 extra Cats fitted and a reduced power output from standard)
D= Germany
E = Spain
F= France
G = Great Britain
R = Italy
S = SingaporeJulian, If you can show me any kind of proof like this below....
Please post it up here as I know lots of enthusiasts of this model that would love to know more about their chosen idols history!
JM2PW!