I Wonder If The Lotus Restomod Can Swim As Well As The Original: COTD

Have you ever heard the saying, “There are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen?” I feel like we’re living in one of those weeks right now with regard to the American auto industry.

Between the president wanting to build and sell Japanese-style small cars in America and all of the news surrounding the upheaval of the country’s long-standing safety and import laws, my colleague Matt Hardigree suggested in The Morning Dump that Ford should simply start importing the Puma, a great small car that it already makes for Europe. Matt loved it when he drove it, and so did Noahwayout:

My wife and I rented a Ford Puma in Italy a couple years ago with the mild-hybrid 1.0 Ecoboost and a manual transmission. It was completely cracking to drive and had enough power even in the Apennine Mountains. It returned fantastic mileage, was quite comfortable, and the auto-start stop was completely imperceptible. We didn’t even realize that it was shutting off at stops until we had been driving it for a few days – it was the first time that I realized that this technology could actually be good.

We’d buy one of these in a heartbeat. Ford, If you’re reading this, for the love of god offer it in fun colors.

Matt also asked which car from the 1970s you’d bring back into production, if you could only choose one. I nominate Abdominal Snoman’s pick:

I suppose if emissions and fuel economy standards don’t matter anymore, Mazda should bring back the REPU, the pickup truck that thinks it’s an RX7.

This morning, I wrote about a Lotus Esprit restomod from a company called Encor that looks like a Series 1, but it’s actually a later V8-powered model underneath. Somehow, I forgot to bring up the most important question that should be asked of any white Esprit on the internet. Thankfully, Rollin Hand had me covered:

I am anxious to see how those big rear wheels tuck up into the body when it goes into submarine mode.

That’s a reference to The Spy Who Loved Me, of course.

I also wondered aloud whether Encor would be able to sell 50 of these cars, since it costs over half a million dollars for the conversion alone, “and who has that much money to blow?” Andy Individual put a spin on that question, which I suspect might have a similar answer.

“There can’t be that many more people in the world who would want a car like this and have that kind of money FOR blow … right?

FIFY

Finally, my colleagues Mercedes Streeter and Griffin Riley are currently on a road trip through Texas, participating in the Lone Star Lemons Rally with The Autopian’s Nissan Murano CrossCabriolet. It’s going about as dramatically as everyone expected, but StillNotATony somehow still isn’t satisfied:

Look…

Just find someplace with a ramp of any sort and jump the thing.

You know it’s what we all want to see. All four wheels with sky visible under them. This is your best chance of rendering it utterly incapable of forward (or backward) motion. Then you can don’t have to worry about that nagging bearing sound.

Just jump it, leave the steaming pile where it sits, and buy a bus ticket back to Illinois.

But make sure Griffin gets good footage, because that is gonna generate some serious clicks.

JUST JUMP IT!!!

I have no financial stake in the CrossCab, so I say go for it.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Top graphic image: Movieclips on YouTube, Eon Productions