The Lotus Carlton was the 180mph supersaloon that had Daily Mail readers spluttering into their cornflakes; the 500E was Mercedes' reply to the M5. Both are our sort of cars
These are not ordinary machines. With combined totals of 703bhp and 773lb ft of torque, between them these two motoring leviathans can carry ten adults and there luggage to the far side of 170mph and in comfort. Massive numbers for massive cars, but one figure that's shrunk in the years since they were launched is the price tag. If you have £25,000 burning a hole in your pocket you could buy both and still have some petrol money left over.
The aggressive, heavily muscled lines of the Lotus Carlton and the massive press coverage surrounding its launch back in the early '90s ensured fame and no little notoriety. With 377bhp from its twin-turbocharged 3.6-litre straight-six and a top speed said to be around 180mph, it could out-run many of the Italian supercars of the same era and at £48,000 it cost a fraction of the price. Shocked Daily Mail readers took exception to its top speed, calling Vauxhall irresponsible for producing a car that they claimed was anti-social and a danger to society. The boys in the GM marketing office couldn't believe their luck.
The Mercedes 500E, by contrast, never made a single tabloid headline, though it packed a similar punch. A master of understatement, it could be mistaken by the uninitiated for a regular Stuttgart taxi. No wings, no spoilers, just gently flared wheelarches filled with 225/55 ZR16 Michelins. Under the bonnet sat a 5-litre V8 that originally found a home inside the 500SL. Here it made 326bhp, which easily powered the big saloon to its electronically restricted 155mph top speed.
The 500E was Mercedes' answer to the 3.5-litre, 315bhp BMW M5 (see issues 5 and 32 for buying guide details). Inside, it could have been mistaken for a well-appointed 300E, although all the important optional extras, such as air-conditioning and electric everything, were fitted as standard. Get behind the wheel, mash the throttle and there was no doubt it was something special: 100mph came up in 14.7 seconds, which was remarkable for a car weighing over 1800kg.
A good Lotus Carlton can be bought now for as little as £12,000 in left-hand-drive form (this was the Continental version, known as the Lotus Omega). You have to pay considerably more for a rhd UK car - between £20.000 and £25,000. The 500E was only ever available as a left-hooker, with only a handful brought into the UK officially, and that has kept prices very low - £13.000 will bag you a good 'un.
So in terms of price and performance, these two supersaloons are pretty well matched, though their image and character are very different. But let's face it, what matters most now is their real-world effectiveness. All that drama, power and class count for nothing if the cars are too expensive and unreliable to run. And the good news is that, despite being almost a decade old, both cars still come up to the mark. Of course you have to understand what you are taking on; both will cost substantially more to run than a new car of equal value, and you have to be able to separate the wheat from the chaff when you buy. Get it right though and, whichever you choose, you (and your four passengers) won't be disappointed.

Evolution
The part that Lotus played in the development of the Carlton has been well documented; it is a far less well-known fact that Mercedes also received outside help with the 500E, in this case from Porsche. Based on the 300E that Mercedes had been building since 1986, each car made several journeys between the Stuttgart factory and Porsche's Rossle-Bau plant in Zuffenhausen, recently vacated by the 959. Each was built by hand and took 18 days to complete; more than 7000 examples were produced in this way between 1992 and 1994. When you consider the amount of effort that went into producing each one, the £57,000 price tag was understandable.
All Lotus Carltons began life on the Opel production line in Russelheim before being shipped to Hethel, where they were disassembled and given an official Lotus type number - 104.
Work began on 'the fastest Vauxhall ever' in 1988, when Lotus (which at that time was GM- owned) was given a brief to produce a Carlton capable of completing the dash to 60mph in less than six seconds. Chief engineer Simon Wood quickly realised this required at least 360bhp and the best way to achieve it would be to add a couple of Garrett T25 turbochargers. Of course, it wasn't quite as straightforward as that, especially as Lotus had identified the safe' specific output limit from an iron block as 100bhp/litre and the GSi engine was only 2969cc. Stroke was increased (there was no boring) to enlarge the displacement to 3.6 litres and the project was on.
Chassis development was left in the hands of Tony Shute and this was no small task. Front and rear geometry were altered, suspension components strengthened, and 17-inch wheels were fitted so that huge 13-inch ventilated brake discs with four-pot AP racing callipers could be bolted on to slow it all down again. The steering was also developed to improve feel - vital with this amount of power and no traction control. The six-speed ZF gearbox was chosen not because of the number of ratios, but because it was the only one available able to cope with the torque. The aerodynamic package achieved zero lift at both front and rear without increasing drag over the standard Carltons and, of course, endowed it with those brawny looks.
Despite the visual restraint, the 500E also had rather more work than just a large engine installation. Stiffer, shorter springs were fitted, lowering the car by about an inch when compared with the 300E, and it was hydraulically self-levelling. Wider wheels and beefier brakes were fitted to keep everything in check and the track was increased by about 4cm at both the front and rear. The injection system was revised from that used in the SL500 to increase torque by 22lb ft, because obviously 332lb ft just wasn't enough.
The 500E was priced considerably higher than the BMW M5 (£57,220 as opposed to £45,7500) and it was also left-hand drive only, so unsurprisingly sales were slow. In fact, fewer than 150 were sold through the official dealer network in the UK, although more than 7000 were produced for the rest of Europe. The Lotus totals are also quite low: only 950 were ever produced and, of them, only 282 were right-hand drive UK examples (these were all built between 1990 and 194. During its short run there were no significant changes made to the Carlton, but the 500E received a gentle facelift in August 1993 with a new grille in line with the rest of E-class range, while its name changed to E500.

‘I Bought One’
Guy Harman - I have only owned this car for a month, but it is one I have wanted since I read the old articles in Car magazine when Rowan Atkinson used to write about the 500E that he owned. I tend to buy and sell-on every six to eight months, purely because I'm a real car nut and just want to try different cars, although I expect I'll be hanging on to this one for a little while longer.
'It is quite a first for me, in that it's both the first Mercedes and the first automatic I've ever owned and I have to say it's absolutely brilliant. It's discreet, hugely powerful, superbly well screwed together (probably better than the cars Mercedes are building now) and I have to admit I like the idea of it being the only four-door Porsche. In fact it'd be nice if there was a subtle, small Porsche badge on it somewhere.
'It is my everyday car. I bought it from MCP who acquired from a German company director who had a chauffeur whisk him up and down the autobahns, and it came with a full Mercedes service history. It has a few stone-chips on the nose, but they are just about the only blemish on the whole of the car.
'With the 500E you really do get a lot of car for the money. The only change I might make to it is to fit a new exhaust to release a little more power at the bottom end. Peter Ward from Racing Technologies has already informed me that he can make me a bespoke item that would do the job and it does sound quite tempting...

’I Bought One’
James Waddington I bought this particular Lotus Omega on Christmas Eve from MCP Motorsport in 1998, so you could say that it was the ultimate Christmas present! It wasn't the first one I'd had, though - I'd sold my first some four months previously, having said that I wouldn't buy another for at least two years, I just couldn't help myself; being without one of these monsters was just too hard to bear.
'I'd wanted one since I was 18, though at that stage it seemed like an impossible dream, but I always kept my eye on Exchange & Mart just to see what the prices were doing and eventually saw one for £18,000 which was just inside my price range. I really am a Vauxhall man through and through and over the years I'd owned a Carlton GSi and three Senators; it was one of these Senators that I part-ex'ed for the Lotus.
'It really is a fabulous machine, but there is more to it than just the looks and the performance - it's one of those cars with huge historical importance. Vauxhall certainly won't build anything like it again, and I expect no-one else will either. It's also the fastest car that Lotus has ever made.
'You have to be aware of the potential problems - particularly the timing chain - but otherwise my advice for anyone thinking about getting a Lotus Carlton is to just go for it. I'm considering changing this one for a right-hand-drive version but, whatever happens, as long as it's possible to buy petrol, I'll always own a Lotus Carlton.'

Finding One
Most of the cars that change hands in the UK do so privately; there are very few specialists or dealers. Both models can take time to find, the buying process often taking weeks or even months to complete, which requires a fair degree of tenacity and a healthy dollop of patience. Right-hand-drive Carltons are more common in the UK than the left-hand version, but don't rule out a left-hooker. A specialist company such as MCP Motorsport of Norfolk will scour the rest of Europe for the best examples of the breed. Obviously when using a specialist it should be one with a good reputation [the clubs should be able to help here] and you should still spend just as much time checking the car over as you would with a private purchase. Doing the hard work yourself and importing personally rarely proves worth the hassle. The professional importers have all the contacts and will always get to the best cars before you; they also tend to buy for less, so even including their commission it's unlikely you'll save much by doing it yourself.