Lotus Esprit X180R Registry on Lotus Esprit Turbo X180R

Chassis 52591001

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Doc Bundy in the No. 10 car at Long Beach. (Credit: Vintage Race Car Sales)

Of the twenty-five Lotus Esprit X180Rs in this register, twenty are road-going homologation cars and five are factory race cars. This is one of the five, and the first Type 106 among them. Chassis 52591001 raced for five seasons as Doc Bundy’s No. 10, won LotuSport’s first IMSA race, and carried Bundy to the 1992 IMSA Bridgestone Supercar Drivers’ Championship — the high-water mark of the whole program.

Looking for an X180R

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

If you are looking to acquire a Lotus Esprit X180R, please write to info@lotus-x180r.com. With only twenty homologation cars built, the X180R rarely trades hands — perhaps one every four or five years — but the registry is glad to pass word between owners and prospective buyers when a car does become available.

Lotus X180R No. 1

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

One of the twenty road-going Esprit X180R homologation cars. The known record for this chassis is summarized here; corrections and photographs are welcome.

Lotus X180R No. 10

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

One of the twenty road-going Esprit X180R homologation cars, delivered new through Continental Motors of Hinsdale, Illinois, and last recorded in New Jersey. The known record for this chassis is summarized here; corrections and photographs are welcome.

Lotus X180R No. 11

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

One of the twenty road-going Esprit X180R homologation cars. The known record for this chassis is summarized here; corrections and photographs are welcome.

Attachments

Photographs

The car on file

Supplied to the registry. Photographer not recorded.

1 image on file for this chassis. Each is credited as far as the record allows; where the photographer is not known, it says so.

Lotus X180R No. 12

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

One of the twenty road-going Esprit X180R homologation cars. The known record for this chassis is summarized here; corrections and photographs are welcome.

Lotus X180R No. 13

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Chassis 60274 is distinguished by its long single ownership — its first owner kept it for some twenty-seven years — and by a rare public appearance in 2024, when it was shown at The Quail, A Motorsports Gathering, in Carmel Valley, California.

Lotus X180R No. 14

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

One of the twenty road-going Esprit X180R homologation cars. The known record for this chassis is summarized here; corrections and photographs are welcome.

Lotus X180R No. 15

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

One of the twenty road-going Esprit X180R homologation cars. The known record for this chassis is summarized here; corrections and photographs are welcome.

Previously owned by Zack Zarcadoolas. He is widely said to have won a 1996 Sprint Challenge championship in an X180R, but the claim rests on a single promotional document, the series itself cannot be identified, and nothing in any source says he raced this car — ownership and a title are separate claims. Possibly exported to Japan in the late 1990s or 2000s.

Lotus X180R No. 16

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

One of the twenty road-going Esprit X180R homologation cars. The known record for this chassis is summarized here; corrections and photographs are welcome.

Previously owned by Jack Ansley, the LotuSport team owner.

Lotus X180R No. 17

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Chassis 60279 was bought new through Scottsdale Lotus by S. Hanson of Paradise Valley, Arizona. This is the same man as LotuSport’s Arizona-based sponsor and gentleman driver Steve Hansen, also of Paradise Valley: the car’s first owner was a member of the team. The two spellings — “Hanson” on the delivery record, “Hansen” in the team’s own papers — are preserved as each source has them.

Lotus X180R No. 18

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Chassis 60280 was built at Hethel in December 1990. Its first owner, Eric Wells, raced in SCCA Pro Trans-Am and IMSA GTO between 1991 and 1995. The car is recorded here in unusual detail. After it sold through Bring a Trailer in June 2020, Veloce Motorsports of Kirkland, Washington, made it driveable again; in 2023 it was given a thorough mechanical and cosmetic sorting by X180R specialist Ralph Stechow at RS Motorsports (Closter, New Jersey) — the work carried out alongside X180R No. 1 in the shop for direct comparison — and in 2025 its rear wing and bumper were repainted.

Lotus X180R No. 19

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Chassis 60282 carries a thin but clean record. It surfaced in Baltimore, Maryland, showing approximately 2,000 miles when it sold in 2005 to its present owner (recorded as JC) in Denver, Colorado, where it has remained since. Earlier ownership is not documented.

Lotus X180R No. 2

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The first of the twenty road-going Esprit X180R homologation cars built — its anomalously early build serial, 60061, sets it apart from the 602xx run that followed — and originally owned by Rich Hairston. The known record for this chassis is summarized here; corrections and photographs are welcome.

Lotus X180R No. 20

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

One of the twenty road-going Esprit X180R homologation cars. The known record for this chassis is summarized here; corrections and photographs are welcome.

Possibly exported to Japan in the late 1990s or 2000s.

Lotus X180R No. 3

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Chassis 60241 — badge #3, VIN SCCFC20B4MHF60241 — began life not with a private buyer but as a company car. It served as the personal demonstrator of Ron Foster, president of Lotus Cars USA, and was not offered for sale until Foster released it. That factory-executive provenance kept its early mileage low: the car was still travelling on its Manufacturer’s Statement of Origin (MSO) — never formally titled — when it changed hands with roughly 8,000 miles showing.

Lotus X180R No. 4

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Chassis 60259 — badge #4 — is the lowest-mileage X180R known to the registry, having covered roughly 499 miles from new. Delivered through Midwestern Auto Group in Columbus, Ohio, it remained with a single owner for close to thirty years before surfacing in 2020 as the Lotus in Curated’s “’80s Time Capsule Collection,” offered for sale by John Temerian Jr.

Lotus X180R No. 5

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Chassis 60260 — badge #5 — worked its way through the Pacific Northwest’s Lotus network before settling in Colorado, where it has stayed for a quarter of a century and earned a place in the marque’s photographic record.

Lotus X180R No. 6

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

One of the twenty road-going Esprit X180R homologation cars. The known record for this chassis is summarized here; corrections and photographs are welcome.

Lotus X180R No. 7

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

One of the twenty road-going Esprit X180R homologation cars. The known record for this chassis is summarized here; corrections and photographs are welcome.

Lotus X180R No. 8

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Chassis 60267 — badge #8 — is documented here chiefly through two period sales listings, reprinted below as they appeared. Fitted with the homologation edition’s full complement of equipment — air conditioning, dual sports seats, power windows and mirrors — it showed 9,210 miles when offered by Gentry Lane of Toronto in January 2016, and something under 22,000 miles when advertised privately on Lotus Talk two years later.

Lotus X180R No. 9

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

One of the twenty road-going Esprit X180R homologation cars. Its Manufacturer’s Statement of Origin (MSO) was wholesaled first to Ron Greenspan Lotus of San Francisco before the car was sold new through Deal Lotus of Asheville, North Carolina. The known record for this chassis is summarized here; corrections and photographs are welcome.

Race Car No. 11 — "Brittany"

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Lotus built five factory race cars: two Type 105s for the 1990 SCCA World Challenge, rebuilt afterwards to the more developed Type 106 specification, and three Type 106s constructed new for the LotuSport IMSA campaign. This is the car that today wears No. 11, and that the people who have kept it call “Brittany.”

Race Car No. 12 — "Eleanor"

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Lotus built five factory race cars: two Type 105s for the 1990 SCCA World Challenge, rebuilt afterwards to the more developed Type 106 specification, and three Type 106s constructed new for the LotuSport IMSA campaign. This is the car that today wears No. 12, and that the people who have kept it call “Eleanor.”

Race Car No. 14 — "Christine"

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Lotus built five factory race cars: two Type 105s for the 1990 SCCA World Challenge, rebuilt afterwards to the more developed Type 106 specification, and three Type 106s constructed new for the LotuSport IMSA campaign. This is the car that today wears No. 14, and that the people who have kept it call “Christine.”

Race Car No. 9 — "Dianna"

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Lotus built five factory race cars: two Type 105s for the 1990 SCCA World Challenge, rebuilt afterwards to the more developed Type 106 specification, and three Type 106s constructed new for the LotuSport IMSA campaign. This is the car that today wears No. 9, and that the people who have kept it call “Dianna.”