Now's Your Chance To Buy A 'Brand New' Lotus Sunbeam RWD Hot Hatch Hero

In the late 1970s, VW had established the hot hatch template as we know it with the now legendary Golf GTI. That front-engined, front-wheel drive car with modest power set the mould for practical and affordable performance cars. Around the same time, though, the Lotus Sunbeam came along with a rear-wheel drive, high-power riposte to all of that.

Wanting to take the Sunbeam rallying, Chrysler called in the help of Lotus to give the rear-wheel drive hatchback a steroid injection. To do so, Hethel fitted its own 2.2-litre slant-four engine and a ZF gearbox, and gave the suspension a complete work-over. The eventual road-going version (sold as a Talbot after PSA Peugoet Citroen took over Chrylser’s European operation) were hugely fast, with 150bhp output giving a 0-60mph time of 7.5 seconds.

Lotus Sunbeams very rarely come up for sale, so the fact that Silverstone Auctions is putting this 1980 example under the hammer with just 193 miles on the clock is a very big deal indeed. The car has never even been registered, meaning that whoever places the winning bid when the car is auctioned on 16th of November at the Birmingham NEC will be the car’s first registered keeper. It won’t be cheap, with an estimate of £24,000-£28,000, but will it be worth it? Hell yes.