The Lotus Esprit is a sports car that was built by Lotus in the United Kingdom from 1976 to 2004. The silver Italdesign concept that eventually became the Esprit was unveiled at the Turin Motor Show in 1972, and was a development of a stretched Lotus Europa chassis. It was among the first of designer Giorgetto Giugiaro's polygonal "folded paper" designs. Originally, the name Kiwi was proposed, but in keeping with the 'E...' naming format of Lotus tradition, the name became Esprit.
