Ferrari Mondial vs Porsche 911 vs Alpine GTA vs Lotus Excel: 2+2 equals phwoar

By Aaron McKay

| 9 Nov 2023

Classic & Sports Car – Ferrari Mondial vs Porsche 911 vs Alpine GTA vs Lotus Excel: 2+2 equals phwoar

“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

Matthew Broderick’s delivery of a rebellious yet effortlessly able teen hero in the 1986 film Ferris Bueller’s Day Off perfectly encapsulated the feeling of an emerging generation of uncompromising, impatient, outside-the-box thinkers who had their sights set on the promise of a computer-led, globally dynamic and have-it-all future.

The Ferrari Mondial QV’s fine details and spacious cabin set the bar high for our quartet of practical supercars

This was a time when even Bill Gates was left looking out of date, holding a 5¼in floppy disk on the cover of Time magazine just as the 3½in version was being widely adopted and flash memory was being conceived.

Entire economies shook under the shifting plates of technological and cultural change, as new industries cast aside the simple disciplines of the past and newly unshackled, computerised financial markets pounced on fresh margins of volume trading.

The work-hard, play-hard generation behind it all demanded everything at once; from those subject to their urgent exclamations into handheld phones to the ultimate toys, status symbols and personal transport, the do-it-all sports car that strode confidently into the supercar playpen.

With the Sport Equipment kit fitted, the 1984 Porsche 911 Carrera 3.2 brought 930 turbo looks to the naturally aspirated model

The natural choice was the Porsche 911.

By then into its third decade, Stuttgart’s rear-engined wonder had established itself as the arbiter of sporting ability, taste and prestige, with glowing magazine reports and the sort of unattainable allure that came with its increasingly unreasonable cost.

But Porsche had timed its even more expensive Carrera 3.2 beautifully and, upon its release in 1984, you could even specify a Sport Equipment kit that made it look just like the MD’s 930 turbo.

At the height of the UK’s post-’86 financial Big Bang, the 911’s £32,849 list price fell neatly within reach of many a trader’s quarterly bonus.

The Renault Alpine GTA V6 Turbo got wider wheels and firmer suspension than the standard GTA V6

Porsche had been sweeping up at Le Mans, too, but it was Renault that was enjoying recognition in Formula One.

Its introduction of the EF1 turbocharged V6 in 1977 was so successful that there was enough marketing capital to justify turbo versions of almost every car in its range, and at the top was the Renault Alpine GTA V6 Turbo (at first just Renault in the UK, where the Alpine name was owned by PSA).

Within the silhouette of Alpines past, realised in cuttingly modern dress, was Renault’s daring thought experiment on what a usable 2+2 supercar for the ’80s ought to be – and, at £23,635, that included being affordable, too.

The Lotus Excel SE received a new spoiler and front lip, with Esprit-type rear suspension

Ferrari had already come to its own conclusion in 1982, with the introduction of a four-seater sister car to the mid-engined
308.

Named the Mondial, it was a tangible manifestation of fabled Maranello ingredients rationalised by new majority owner Fiat into a more mass-market offering of maximised packaging.

As a symbol of success, the Prancing Horse is difficult to argue with, but the Mondial’s neat Pininfarina lines left it looking almost too sensible and did little to avoid appearing like something of a modest understudy to the V12 400i, even if its £37,950 asking price and a waiting list measured in years remained lofty bragging rights.

Clockwise from top: the Ferrari Mondial QV’s glassy cabin is spacious; if you’re regularly carrying rear-seat passengers, the Mondial is the best option here; centre-console control panel even monitors gearbox-oil level

A practical alternative to the Lotus Esprit was, by 1986, really the ultimate evolution of founder Colin Chapman’s first true road car.

A front-engined GT loosely in the mould of the 1957 Elite, the Excel SE was a deft 2+2 from a company full of hope for turning its legendary Formula One status and post-Chapman shake-up into a profitable road car business.

For just £17,980, on offer was the source of many reputed road testers’ dynamic praise, as well as a low-slung wedge profile with visual drama worthy of supercars at twice its price.

Clockwise from top: the new Carrera offered many more interior trim options, but it’s familiar in look and feel to any Porsche 911 owner; space in the rear is severely limited; the rev counter takes centre stage

Ironically, with the 1984 Carrera 3.2, it might have been the long-lived Porsche 911 that delivered the greatest shock to the old school.

Within its familiar steel shell, on the usual torsion-bar suspension, a 3.2-litre engine with reportedly 80% new components dispatched such a flex of flat-six muscle that it even dared to step into the territory of the mighty range-topping turbo.

A multitude of new internals, manifolds and ancillaries brought smoother running along with a whopping 230bhp and 209lb ft of torque, while the electronic Bosch Motronic 2 engine management flew dynamic response and fuel economy under the noses of its archaic rivals.

Clockwise from top: the Renault Alpine GTA V6 Turbo’s interior is the most ’80s in feel; rear seats are upright but fairly roomy; the graphic equaliser is a throwback

The highly strung 1984 Carrera now had a 10.3:1 compression ratio, up from the 1980 SC’s 8.6:1, while the K-Jetronic-fed 930 turbo thumped along at 7.5:1.

Larger, uprated brakes matched its pace, while the optional Sport Equipment pack added grippy Pirelli P7 tyres, 205/55 front and 225/50 rear, on forged Fuchs alloy wheels.

In Guards Red, Charles Porter’s 1989 911 3.2 SE, with the later G50 gearbox, is, as he puts it: “A stockbroker’s wet dream.”

Almost apologetic of its brash image, which continues inside with red-piped ivory leather, Charles says: “I never wanted a 911, but when I came across this one it took just one drive to convince me.”

Clockwise from top: the Lotus Excel SE has plenty of rich tan leather, but the interior fit and finish lags well behind rivals; rear chairs are deeply sculpted but narrow; wooden dash features more old-school charm than ’80s innovation

The anticipation of piloting one of the 1980s’ most renowned driver’s cars remains just as gripping as it must have been for the lucky go-getter who had finally cashed in for their reward back in its day.

The ergonomic failings of the secondary controls go largely unnoticed amid the theatre of the snug sports seats, a purposeful array of dials and the pontoon-style wings that flank the bonnet.

The main controls are weighty and smoothly damped, matching an impressive solidity in the shell that’s obvious from the off.

The Ferrari Mondial QV shares its quad rear lights with the 308GTB

The flat-six stirs with bassy authority at lower revs, but there’s never any time to lose in a 911.

In a bright-red flash, both tachometer and whale-tailed 911 fly off the handle on a shove of the right foot, whereupon the engine yowls into a tenor and the chassis begins to feed in the forces of the road, albeit through a surprisingly supple ride.

Err too much on the side of caution and the nose patters into understeer, but steer it from the rear with confident throttle inputs and it rewards with a richly engaging togetherness that spurs you on to corner even faster.

This Porsche 911 Carrera 3.2 wears forged Fuchs rims

The rear-engined GTA V6 Turbo demands a similar approach.

Loaded up with a rush of forced induction, it pins its rear axle and traces a laser-guided line around corners led by sharp steering and resolutely controlled suspension.

But it feels far more challenging to set up than the Porsche: long, autoroute-striding gearing suits its turbocharged torque, but judging the right moment to build boost in the narrow window bordered by understeer isn’t anything like the fun game it is in the 911.

The turbocharged Renault Alpine GTA V6 Turbo has oodles of low-down grunt

On its favoured sweeping A-roads, it fires along with horizon-hunting authority and a subdued roar from its V6 that delivers the rapid, effortless pace promised by its new-age design.

Sitting low on its plush leather seats, the Marcello Gandini-designed interior is probably the best option for those who want to pretend that rival Porsches are MiG-28s lined up in their wraparound binnacle’s sights.

Renault’s then fascination with extraordinarily sophisticated Panasonic Hi-Fi units should also guarantee the perfect rendition of Danger Zone to accompany such antics – at least once you’ve properly adjusted the five-way equaliser.

‘Against the packaging of the Mondial and interior space advantages of the rear-engined duo, the Excel feels cramped’

Underneath the GTA’s refined and spacious cabin is a lightly updated A310 chassis; so, too, is its glassfibre body glued together and mated with the steel structure like past Alpines, and the venerable PRV V6 was also carried over.

But Renault pored over this car with a genuine ambition to take the fight to Porsche and anyone else who might get in the way.

At the height of its powers of race-winning, and with a long-built reputation for engineering, this avant-garde flagship held real significance alongside its businesslike sibling, the Renault 25 Turbo.

The large engine lid gives good access to the Ferrari’s 32-valve V8, which revs to 7500rpm

Adding an intercooler and revising the exhaust, ignition and ‘Remix’ injection systems gave the GTA an 18bhp and 3lb ft edge on the executive hatch, while double-wishbone suspension all round, with anti-dive geometry, turbo-specific dampers and fat 225/50 tyres at the rear, with 195/50s at the front, completed a compelling junior supercar package.

The engine had been moved forward 1.6in from the A310, improving weight distribution by around 3% to 38.1 front, 61.9 rear, while the dramatic lines courtesy of R5 Turbo designer Yves Legal were remarkably clean through the air.

The standard GTA had a drag coefficient of 0.28, rising to 0.30 for the intake-hungry turbo – which left the 0.39Cd Porsche lagging behind in the high-speed stakes.

The Porsche 911’s revised flat-six included new tensioners, and there is a gearbox-oil cooler

Although the Alpine’s rear seats are full-sized, neatly contoured and vastly more inviting than the Porsche’s finely trimmed shelves or the Excel’s oddly recessed squabs, the Ferrari Mondial’s glassy cabin is the only one here that delivers on the promise of a full 2+2 experience.

Its rear seats sit 2in above those in front, offering a welcome view of an interior perfectly in tune with the first-class airport lounge that Maranello had likely envisaged a quartet of impatient jet-setters travelling to in its rapid four-seater.

With an additional 100mm added to the 308GTB’s wheelbase, Pininfarina’s elongated fixed-head design can appear a little awkward in profile, but quickly captures the eye with its fine Ferrari detailing.

The Renault Alpine’s ubiquitous PRV Douvrin V6 engine makes 200bhp, but has the most torque here

Straked vents, the inverted-dish five-spoke alloys and the way the richly finished bodywork tucks underneath hints at engineering in another class to the others.

Its flat-plane-crank V8, equipped with Bosch K-Jetronic fuel injection and run by Digiplex electronic ignition, was reworked into the 32-valve quattrovalvole in 1982, upping power by 26bhp to 237bhp, but even its final, 300bhp iteration failed to quite match the old Dino 308GT4’s power-to-weight ratio.

It is also the largest and heaviest in our group.

The Lotus Excel SE’s twin-cam ‘four’ got Mahle forged-aluminium pistons and liners

But this was a Ferrari that appealed to mass audiences not just on price, size and pace: it was far more refined, less of a headache to own and eased drivers into the zeal of the marque without the intimidation of a traditional supercar.

“I like a little bit of luxury with performance,” says owner Louis Chavasse, who is also a fan of modern-classic Maseratis, “I’m just mad about Italian engineering.”

During a body and trim restoration of his 1984 QV, he added some extra soundproofing.

‘The Ferrari [left] rewards in full colour but without the sharp edges of a full-blown supercar, yet the Lotus is even easier to exploit’

On a comfortable, Modernist showpiece of a seat mounted mere inches from the floor, vision out of the bright cabin is excellent and the muffled firing of eight exotic pistons behind you sustains the odd sensation of a supercar and supersaloon combined.

A blip of the throttle elicits a softer-edged bark from the V8 than in a 308GTB, while the steering feels almost dull in its low-speed lightness.

The skewed driving position remains, though, as does the galloping drama of a Ferrari on song when you open the taps: what begins as a car that feels bereft of torque compared with the Porsche and Alpine spins up into a frenzy of cammy revs and a thrashing flat-plane roar that won’t fail to impress passengers with its sense of urgency, even if it ultimately remains off the pace of the others.

The glassfibre-bodied Renault Alpine GTA (left) is lighter than the Porsche 911 overall, but more rear-biased

At full tilt, the steering comes mostly back to life on its calmed geometry, pairing well with a benign balance and supple suspension that rewards the driver in full colour but without the sharp edges of a full-blown supercar near the limit.

The Lotus Excel may be even easier to fully exploit, which, being the least powerful here, is particularly useful.

Its direct steering dials you into a chassis that claws grip out of every ripple and twist of the Tarmac beneath, as long-travel coil springs blend even the most challenging roads into consistent responses.

The venerable Lotus twin-cam is a willing partner in an all-out attack of a typical British B-road, charging in full-bore anger through twin Dell’Orto carburettors.

The Ferrari’s straked vents are eye-catching

In high-output SE spec, it has a raw enthusiasm born out of increased, 10.9:1 compression, more aggressive camshafts, and freer-breathing inlet and exhaust ports.

The Éclat Excel had arrived in 1982, and was such a significant revision to the then eight-year-old Éclat that it soon became simply Excel.

Changes to the classic backbone chassis, rear suspension and a sleek new glassfibre body with a 0.32Cd joined a variety of Toyota-sourced driveline and detail components that were all aimed at providing greater reliability, build quality and refinement for a model that was already acknowledged as a talented driver’s car.

The Porsche 911’s whale-tail spoiler is not for shy types

Following the 180bhp SE in 1986, the 1991 Celebration trim aspired to even greater, more refined heights.

Ostensibly to mark 25 years of the Hethel factory, it was also a cunning way to maximise the Excel’s appeal as it approached the end of production, featuring glossy ‘Marque Lotus Metallic’ paint with gold detailing and tan leather trim, along with standard air conditioning and wool carpeting.

But against the expansive packaging of the Mondial and the inherent interior space advantages of the rear-engined duo, the Excel’s cabin feels cramped and old-fashioned.

The Renault Alpine GTA V6 Turbo’s subtle turbine alloy wheels

Rolls of leather-trimmed hardpoints encroach on the footwells, fouling the driver’s knees, while rear passengers are expected to adopt postures really only appropriate for gymnasia.

The way engine heat seeps in through the bulkhead and the Dell’Ortos grumble around town ultimately reveals this car’s roots as one of the great-driving yet still compromised classic British sports cars, rather than a sophisticated high-performance machine of the modern era.

And yet, even beyond the heat-soaked whiff of ancient BL plastics and unconvincing burr-elm trim, there is something oddly glamorous about the Excel Celebration that feels perfectly fitting for the last front-engined Lotus sports GT.

The Lotus Excel SE has a decent drag coefficient of 0.32Cd

“Now I’ve had a Lotus, I don’t know what else I’d have,” reflects owner Rob Mepsted on this Norfolk magic.

“Even for an Esprit, I don’t know if I could get rid of this first.”

Indeed, for the money, little else comes close.

It looks and plays the part with a shape as lithe as its handling, a proper gem of an engine and refinement levels enough for long tours.

If it didn’t quite capture the imaginations of uncompromising yuppies at the time, its Lotus-branded charm might now resonate stronger than ever – especially for those who have tried to get in and out of an Esprit.

Pop-ups root the Mondial and Excel firmly in the ’80s, but the Lotus shape dates from 1975

Unfortunately, it is in the company of cars with just as much dynamic flair but better manners and more generous interiors.

The Alpine is in danger of being too polite, so determined is it to turn a supercar into an executive express.

Contrary to the bold red lettering on the outside, you sometimes wonder where the ‘V6 turbo’ has gone.

Apart from a protest of cams at high revs, and the subtle whirr of forced induction, the main drama the GTA delivers is in its continent-crushing pace.

And yet this primary failing as a supercar could equally be seen as part of its character as an avant-garde performance weapon. Its wild design certainly still delivers.

‘The anticipation of piloting one of the best ’80s driver’s cars is just as gripping as it must have been for a lucky go-getter back in the day’

The Porsche is as good as it’s ever been, and probably still the envy of many rising stars.

To be dropped off at school in one could even be worth the discomfort of its rear ‘seats’, and the legendary G-body 911 has the sort of robust staying power that lends itself to inheritance.

But if your eyes are wide open to having it all, the Ferrari Mondial has the drama, details and practicalities to more than fill your appetite.

If you have the (actually rather modest) means, I highly recommend picking one up.

Images: Max Edleston

Thanks to: Wiltshire venue Wick Bottom Barn; Lotusbits; John Law Engineering

Factfiles

Ferrari Mondial QV

Sold/number built 1982-’85/1774 (all)
Construction steel spaceframe chassis, steel body
Engine all-alloy, dohc-per-bank, 32-valve 2927cc V8, fuel injection
Max power 237bhp @ 7000rpm
Max torque 192lb ft @ 5000rpm
Transmission five-speed manual, RWD
Suspension independent, by wishbones, coil springs, telescopic dampers, anti-roll bar f/r
Steering rack and pinion
Brakes discs, with servo
Length 15ft ¼in (4580mm)
Width 5ft 10⅓in (1790mm)
Height 4ft 1¼in (1250mm)
Wheelbase 8ft 8¼in (2650mm)
Weight 3153lb (1430kg)
Mpg 18
0-60mph 6.8 secs
Top speed 144mph
Price new £37,950
Price now £30-50,000*

Porsche 911 Carrera 3.2

Sold/number built 1984-’89/76,473
Construction steel monocoque
Engine all-alloy, sohc-per-bank, 12-valve 3164cc flat-six, Bosch Motronic fuel injection
Max power 231bhp @ 5900rpm
Max torque 209lb ft @ 4800rpm
Transmission five-speed manual, RWD
Suspension independent, at front by MacPherson struts, longitudinal torsion bars rear semi-trailing arms, transverse torsion bars; anti-roll bars f/r
Steering rack and pinion
Brakes discs, with servo
Length 14ft ⅞in (4290mm)
Width 5ft 5in (1652mm)
Height 4ft 3⅞in (1320mm)
Wheelbase 7ft 5½in (2272mm)
Weight 2571lb (1166kg)
Mpg 21
0-60mph 6.1 secs
Top speed 152mph
Price new £32,849 (Sport Equipment, 1987)
Price now £50-70,000*

Renault Alpine GTA V6 Turbo

Sold/number built 1984-’91/6942 (all)
Construction steel spaceframe chassis, glassfibre body
Engine all-alloy, sohc-per-bank, 12-valve 2458cc V6, Garrett T3 turbocharger, Remix fuel injection
Max power 200bhp @ 5700rpm
Max torque 210lb ft @ 2500rpm
Transmission five-speed manual, RWD
Suspension independent, by double wishbones, coil springs, telescopic dampers, anti-roll bar f/r
Steering rack and pinion
Brakes discs, with servo and ABS
Length 14ft 2½in (4330mm)
Width 5ft 9in (1754mm)
Height 3ft 11⅛in (1197mm)
Wheelbase 7ft 8in (2339mm)
Weight 2601lb (1180kg)
Mpg 21
0-60mph 6 secs
Top speed 155mph
Price new £23,635
Price now £15-20,000*

Lotus Excel SE

Sold/number built 1982-’92/2075 (all Excels)
Construction steel backbone chassis, glassfibre body
Engine all-alloy, dohc, 16-valve 2174cc ‘four’, twin Dell’Orto carbs
Max power 180bhp @ 6500rpm
Max torque 165lb ft @ 5000rpm
Transmission five-speed manual, RWD
Suspension independent, at front by double wishbones, anti-roll bar rear wishbones, transverse top links; coil springs, telescopic dampers f/r
Steering variable-ratio power-assisted rack and pinion
Brakes discs, with servo
Length 14ft 5⅛in (4398mm)
Width 5ft 11½in (1816mm)
Height 3ft 11½in (1207mm)
Wheelbase 8ft 1¾in (2483mm)
Weight 2581lb (1168kg)
Mpg 20
0-60mph 6.8 secs
Top speed 131mph
Price new £17,980
Price now £10-20,000*