Lotus Carlton vs Lancia Thema 8.32: looks can be deceiving

By James Whitworth

| 12 Feb 2026

Classic & Sports Car – Lotus Carlton vs Lancia Thema 8.32: looks can be deceiving

The transition of the thrill-hungry motorist from sports car to saloon is a bitter one.

In one fell swoop, the machine that once cricked the necks of envious passers-by and turned bedroom-wall poster fantasies into delicious reality disappears down the road in a grinning new owner’s hands.

As its tail-lights fade, the attention turns to something more practical – be it for hauling around family or shopping – and, no matter how sporty it purports to be, there is always the nagging notion of sacrifice.

That thought continues to grind away in the mind of the owner until it re-emerges many years down the line, in what unsympathetic non-enthusiasts refer to as a mid-life crisis.

Lotus’ input means the Carlton easily out-handles the Lancia Thema 8.32

During the 1980s, however, a new breed of saloon-car buyer went looking for an all-rounder without compromise.

This was an era that introduced the idea of the ‘junior supercar’, a raucous delicacy that trod a fine line between usability and panache, and often at a price many could reach.

Ferrari sold 20,000 308s, Porsche shifted vast numbers of 911s and the Lotus Esprit proved to be Hethel’s meal ticket throughout the decade.

So where did these buyers go to get their high-performance fix when kids came along or the recession dictated only one car?

In the days before ‘all-rounder’ meant a supertanker-sized luxury off-roader, the answer lay in the supersaloon.

For all their apparent differences, the Lancia Thema 8.32 and Lotus Carlton share plenty.

The Lotus Carlton’s stonking twin-cam ‘six’ makes 377bhp

Both were created for the same reason: a large car manufacturer conferring its more exotic connections on to a humble executive saloon to increase its market prestige.

Both were record-breakers upon launch – the Lotus as the fastest saloon and the Lancia as the most powerful front-wheel-drive car – but neither had a series to race in.

Both signal their differences to passing cognoscenti with subtle badging, and each cost its maker dearly, proving difficult to shift thanks to their outrageous price-tags.

It is the controversy these cars have courted, however, that makes them so infamous.

The Lotus Carlton goes down alongside negative equity and BSE in the early-’90s Daily Mail annals as the irresponsible, bespoilered face of performance motoring.

The Lancia Thema 8.32 looks discreet with its spoiler stowed

It’s still the only car to have inspired questions in the House of Commons and was, in the opinion of ‘Outraged of Tunbridge Wells’, the wheeled equivalent of an acid-house rave in next door’s garden.

The Lancia inhabits a shadier world: not as lairy and outrageous as the Lotus, but more sinister and less quantifiable.

The most exotic Thema sold well among Switzerland’s banking community, and rumours abound of these subtle front-tyre shredders being used as getaway vehicles in heists as they became the wheels of choice for European franchisees of the Mafia – but nothing that can be confirmed, of course, which only adds to the intrigue.

Away from tabloid hysteria and the criminal underground grapevine, this pair had plenty to mark them out as hellraisers as far as purists were concerned.

Why should a noble Ferrari engine be disgraced by a front-wheel-drive layout? Why should Lotus bother itself in modifying a non-premium-name barge when there were Esprits to build?

The Lancia Thema 8.32’s Ferrari V8 sends power to the front wheels

All questions raised at the time, and all quashed the minute these cars first turned their wheels in anger.

For here was a pair of family-friendly four-door saloons with performance and handling finesse that ran rings around the era’s mid-engined, side-straked, gullwing-doored excesses.

The first element of the Lancia to strike is its sense of quality and good taste.

As owner Richard Sexton notes, not one surface you come into contact with from behind the wheel is plastic, from the stainless-steel trim around the standard Thema doorhandles to the leather grip on the handbrake.

There is flamboyance, too, in the satin-bronze finish to the window linings. The remote keyfob for the central locking would have been unspeakably flash in 1987, too.

The Thema 8.32 is proudly proclaimed as a Lancia, rather than a Ferrari

Then there’s the column stalk-activated spoiler that slides up and rearwards out of the bootlid but at rest resembles a closed sunroof for the benefit of whoever the acting Don Corleone has thrown in the boot.

The slim-rimmed wheel is wrapped in hand-stitched leather, as is the entire dashboard shroud, nestling alongside matchwood instrument surrounds and door cappings, high-quality, soft and cosseting cloth seat trim (leather was an option) and deep-pile lambswool carpets.

Lancia even presented each new owner with a matchwood box, containing a glossy brochure of images of the car, to complement the dashboard finish.

The overall impression, with its deep-set Veglia dials, contrasts favourably with the Ferrari 412, and it comes as no surprise to hear that Enzo Ferrari himself was chauffeur-driven in an 8.32 during the final year of his life.

Yes, this project was given Il Commendatore’s blessing, contrary to the opinion of many who see it as a tasteless squandering of Ferrari’s values (the same folk who spoke ill of the Dino, no doubt).

Cloth is standard in the Lancia Thema 8.32’s smartly appointed cabin

Busted myth number two: the engine in this rare Series One car did come from Ferrari and not Ducati, as is frequently suggested.

In these early cars, the 32-valve V8 – with its flat-plane crank famously running the opposite way to the ‘standard’ three-litre found in the 308 – came from Maranello.

By the introduction of the Series Two (its indicators are mounted in a strip beneath the headlights), the money lost on the project dictated a cost-saving edict that led to the famous motorcycle manufacturer assembling the engines.

Admittedly there is something slightly incongruous about seeing the Ferrari unit (incidentally, it’s the only part of the car that’s branded as such) in all its glory squeezed transversely under the bonnet of this front-wheel-drive car.

It’s a bit like Robert Plant popping down to your local pub’s open-mic night.

But remember that compatriot Maserati did not see itself as being above the drive configuration – with the likes of the joint-project Citroën SM and the Chrysler TC – so why should the Thema be treated differently?

The Lancia Thema 8.32 is civilised, and understeers when pushed

The ‘real-deal’ Ferrari V8 fires up with a rich bark, before being drowned by the whistle and whine of its cooling system.

Pump the hefty throttle to maintain revs – it has a tendency to stall if left idling – squeeze the clutch and fight the tough, rather vague gearshift into first as you hear the plates expensively mesh, and the Thema twitches forwards.

The power steering groans and judders on full lock, but once under way and into second all of the Italian supercar histrionics are replaced by a serene solidity.

The driving position, slightly upright with the wheel sitting neatly in your lap, owes more to the Thema’s Swedish parent – the Saab 9000 – than any Italian cousin, and the steering feels smooth, perhaps even slightly detached.

The natural front-wheel-drive understeer is countered by a degree of negative camber and the nose-down stance; it’s a sharp reminder that this car’s set-up helped to develop the flawed Alfa Romeo 164 Super into the BMW 5 Series-beater it was always intended to be.

The Lancia Thema 8.32’s matchwood fascia

Work your way up to third and, instead of snatching fourth and settling into a cruise, keep your right foot planted.

At that point, the potent chunter of the engine erupts into a metallic howl. While it doesn’t translate into scenery-warping acceleration, neither does it hang about.

Mentally translating the speedometer’s kph into mph becomes less of a priority than playing tunes with the engine – who cares about breaking any land-speed records?

The Thema is not a car for throwing around, though: perhaps it’s the effect of the left-hand drive on British roads, but it feels rather wide, with the driving position exiled to the extremity of the cabin.

The five-speed gearbox becomes friendlier at higher speeds, snicking between cruising ratios while daring you to leave it in fourth and attempt to lift an inside rear wheel in the wider sweepers.

The Thema 8.32 has Lancia emblems on the wheels; you have to lift the bonnet to find a Ferrari badge

Once the limits of adhesion are finally broken it will obviously understeer, but it’s unlikely you’d want to push it that hard.

That said, this may be very much a family car, but it delivers all the right Ferrari sensations for the family motorist who defiantly resists the onset of MPVs and ‘quality interior plastics’.

The Lotus comes as something of a culture shock after the smooth and civilised Thema.

You fall a good few inches further than expected into the hard leather buckets, hips bludgeoned by bolsters on the way down, and prod pedals so heavy they leave your thighs aching for hours to come.

The Carlton’s reputation for not suffering fools is clear before you even turn the key.

Weight- and money-saving is evident, with a standard Carlton dash enlivened only by some Lotus script and splashes of brittle-feeling wood veneer.

‘The first element of the Lancia to strike is its sense of quality and good taste’

There’s evidence of cost-cuts and bodges out of sight, too.

According to owner Andy Winkworth, the central lapbelt from the GSi3000 it’s based on can be found underneath the twin rear buckets – which look as if they were formed when two portly rear passengers were subjected to an impromptu full-bore standing-start.

Firing up the engine is no less intimidating. A mechanical clicking you assume to be the fuel pump turns out to be the rear self-levelling suspension jacking the back up so the boot-mounted wing is at the optimum angle.

Through bends it corners flat, with the rock-hard dampers drumming the road’s surface with tough, stocky tyres.

The steering is power-assisted but feels heavy, although prodigious grip means there’s no danger of the knife-edge high-speed breakaway you might expect.

The Lotus Carlton’s subtle Imperial Green hue masks its barely contained aggression

It sports a clutch with an action as wearing as playing keepy-uppy with a bag of cement, but the Lotus-honed Corvette ZR-1 gearbox proves highly usable.

A positive shift across a clearly defined gate – not unlike a Ferrari’s, but with a long-legged nature – makes slapping it into fourth and pottering as easy as squeezing every last ounce of acceleration from each ratio.

It’s even set up for mile-munching: sixth is an economy overdrive good for ‘just’ 125mph.

Follow the same practice as the Thema – leaving it in third and keeping the right foot planted – and there’s a turbine-like scream from the twin Garrett AiResearch T25 turbos.

The torque of the straight-six massages out any lag, and the accumulation of speed is relentless.

The Lotus Carlton’s cabin lacks character

Supercar road tests are full of such accelerative clichés as ‘face-bending’ and ‘neck-straining’, but in this case they are very much true.

Each stab of throttle has the same pressure-effect on your ears as take-off in an airliner.

Third gear is good for 100mph-plus, fourth will see you to 150, and while full tilt in fifth was certified by Lotus at 177mph, it had run out of runway and was in enough trouble with the press already.

Some owners have allegedly run the needle off the clock on the autobahn, so genuine top speed is probably in the region of 190mph.

When you read – and experience – figures like that from a four-door saloon, you realise how shell-shocked the Lotus Carlton left the supercar industry in the early ’90s.

At the time, the only car Ferrari had in its line-up that could better the Carlton in a straight line was the F40.

The Lotus Carlton is allegedly capable of running off the 180mph speedometer

This car, with a mass-produced engine stroked to 3.6 litres and a pair of turbochargers also found on a number of more everyman performance Fords, was slaying without effort V12-engined trinkets of dubious taste and value while carrying four adults plus plenty of luggage – and looking fairly innocuous while doing it.

The age of supercar excess was over: the fact that today every major executive saloon has a bonkers sibling is testament to the impact of the Lotus Carlton. That’s not to belittle the Lancia Thema 8.32’s abilities.

As we find ourselves in another age of excess – tragically it’s now called ‘bling’, but it’s all very ’80s regardless of what its diamond-encrusted proponents might claim – and with Ferrari’s sense of brand awareness at an all-time high, a ‘new’ 8.32 smattered with Prancing Horses would be Lancia’s perfect foil to the likes of the BMW M5 and Mercedes-Benz E-Class AMG.

But that would be to ignore the subtle, V8-engined performance saloon already housed within the newly minted Stellantis stable: the Maserati Quattroporte, the Thema 8.32’s true successor.

There are big ventilated discs behind the Lotus Carlton’s five-spoke wheels

Vauxhall also, after some length, found a worthy successor to the Lotus Carlton in the Australian-built VXR8.

However, its approach was rather more low-tech, with a big V8 in place of tuning and turbos.

Still, it fitted the bill, visually carrying off the same trick as the Carlton and leaving just enough performance addenda on show to remind people what it was capable of.

Even though many describe the Carlton as looking mad and aggressive, it still manages to appear as restrained as it does menacing, particularly beside the likes of the Ford Sierra RS Cosworth. Perhaps it’s down to that subdued Imperial Green paint.

There’s little point trying to pick a winner here. Although the Carlton clearly blitzes the Thema on the road, it’s the ‘because we can’ spirit in which these cars were created that is of ultimate importance.

There are definite overtones of Citroën SM from the driving seat of the subtle, smooth-driving Thema, and it’s a civilised and entertaining place from which to eat mile after mile of continental autostrada.

The Lotus Carlton doesn’t hide Hethel’s ministrations

The Carlton, in contrast, is much harder work.

Modern executive saloons could learn much from the 8.32’s no-plastic approach to comfort, too.

Even the stereo is hidden behind a block of wood, a refreshing change from today’s ‘luxury’ dashboards dominated by computer screens: hardly a luxury if you’ve been staring at one in the office all day.

Perhaps if the prototype 4x4 Integrale version was put into series production and right-hand drive had been offered as an option, it would have sold better in Britain (just nine found homes here) and it would be worth more than half a Carlton today.

That said, it’s still the cheapest way into a car with a Ferrari engine.

However, if you want to spear up the outside lane, confident in your ability to out-drag everything from supercars to the pursuing police, look no further than the machine Lotus described as ‘the world’s most potent production saloon’ and the Daily Mail called ‘irresponsible’.

Hethel 1, Maranello – and Tunbridge Wells – nil.

Images: Tony Baker

This was first in our July 2008 magazine; all information was correct at the date of original publication

Factfiles

Lotus Carlton

Sold/number built 1989-’92/284 (plus 666 Lotus Omegas)
Construction steel monocoque
Engine iron-block, alloy-head, dohc 3615cc 24v ‘six’, two intercooled Garrett T25 turbochargers and fuel injection
Max power 377bhp @ 5200rpm
Max torque 419lb ft @ 4200rpm
Transmission ZF six-speed manual, RWD
Suspension independent, at front by MacPherson struts, twin-tube dampers, anti-roll bar rear multi-link, semi-trailing arms, coil springs, self-levelling twin-tube dampers
Steering power-assisted recirculating ball
Brakes ventilated discs, with servo and anti-lock
Length 15ft 7¾in (4768mm)
Width 6ft 4in (1933mm)
Height 4ft 8½in (1435mm)
Wheelbase 8ft 11½in (2731mm)
Weight 3649lb (1655kg)
0-60mph 5.1 secs
Top speed 177mph
Mpg 23
Price new £48,000

Lancia Thema 8.32

Sold/number built 1988-’90/2370
Construction steel monocoque
Engine all-alloy, dohc-per-bank 2972cc 32v 90° V8, Bosch KE-3 Jetronic fuel injection
Max power 215bhp @ 6750rpm
Max torque 209lb ft @ 4500rpm
Transmission five-speed manual, FWD
Suspension independent, at front by MacPherson struts rear struts, transverse and trailing links; anti-roll bar f/r
Steering power-assisted rack and pinion
Brakes vented front, solid rear discs, with servo
Length 15ft ¾in (4591mm)
Width 5ft 9in (1753mm)
Height 4ft 8½in (1435mm)
Wheelbase 8ft 10¾in (2711mm)
Weight 3086lb (1400kg)
Mpg 16
0-60mph 7.2 secs
Top speed 150mph
Price new £37,500