Car of the month – Encor Series 1

What in the name of Wet Nellie…
Meet the Encor Series 1, a full-blown modernisation – not to mention complete improvement – over the original Lotus Esprit S1 V8, the model that starred as the aqua-car in The Spy Who Loved Me (easily one of the best James Bond films). Wet Nellie, as the 007 prop was nicknamed, later wound up in an unpaid New York storage unit that was eventually sold off blind in the mid-1980s for just $100 (£60) to a very lucky tool-shop owner. The man with a Bond villain name, Elon Musk, bought it in 2013 for £615,000.

You’re off topic…
Yes, sorry. Back to this glorious thing. Encor takes an original Esprit chassis, of which there were 1237 V8s made, and completely overhauls it. While the steel chassis, engine block, gearbox casing and a few ancillaries are carried over, the rest of the car is essentially brand new. The 3.5-litre V8 has new internals, electrics, cooling and turbochargers so it pushes out 400bhp in a package that weighs 1200kg.

It looks muscular
It is. Both the front and rear track are wider than the original Esprit to help cope with the new-found power. There’s also a Quaife limited-slip differential to further sharpen handling, the gearbox is fully rebuilt and there’s a twin-plate clutch. New suspension uprights, shocks, springs, AP Racing brakes… the list goes on.