This is said to be the 1990 Lotus Elan SE that was used while filming the Rick Moranis classic Honey, I Blew Up the Kid in 1992. The car featured in a memorable scene, with a 100+ ft tall baby picking it up and playing with it above the Las Vegas Strip.
The eBay seller has some documentation to back up the car’s claim to fame. They note that this is the only Elan to survive filming, which isn’t too surprising once you’ve seen the scene in question (we embedded it below). It’s now being offered for sale out of Florida.
Fast Facts: The Lotus Elan M100
- This is said to be the 1990 Lotus Elan SE featured in “Honey, I Blew Up the Kid,” it’s now listed for sale out of Melbourne, Florida. Said to be the only Elan that survived filming, it appeared in a memorable scene where a 100+ foot tall baby plays with it above the Las Vegas Strip. Documentation supporting the claim is provided.
- Released on July the 17th, 1992, and directed by Randal Kleiser, “Honey, I Blew Up the Kid” was a Disney sequel to the smash hit “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.” The plot follows Wayne Szalinski’s toddler Adam growing to over 100 feet due to a lab mishap. The film grossed $96 million on a $32 million budget – modest compared to the original’s $222.7 million.
- The Lotus Elan M100, built under GM’s ownership of Lotus, was an advanced front-wheel-drive sports car developed with a 1.6 liter Isuzu engine. Despite its brilliant handling, styling by Peter Stevens, and praise from reviewers like Autocar, it struggled due to high costs, FWD stigma, and competition from the cheaper, rear-drive Mazda MX-5.
- The car on offer is a Series 1 turbocharged Elan SE finished in “Norfolk Mustard,” featuring ABS, a 5-speed manual, and a black and red interior. It’s one of fewer than 4,800 M100s produced. While overshadowed by the later Elise, the M100 remains beloved by fans who value its driving dynamics and its unique place in Lotus history.
Honey, I Blew Up the Kid
Honey, I Blew Up the Kid was released by Walt Disney Pictures on the 17th of July 1992, it’s the second feature in the studio’s size-changing comedy series that began with Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989), and it’s the only installment directed by Randal Kleiser, best known for the movies Grease and The Blue Lagoon.
Above Video: This is the original “behind the scenes” reel for “Honey, I Blew Up the Kid.” It shows the yellow Lotus extensively, and how they managed to make it look like it was being swung around 100 ft in the air by a giant toddler.
In the film, Rick Moranis returns as eccentric inventor Wayne Szalinski, now employed at Sterling Labs near Las Vegas, Nevada. While perfecting a particle-alignment laser intended to enlarge inanimate objects for industrial use, Wayne inadvertently exposes his two-year-old son Adam to the beam.
Adam’s initial growth to seven feet seems somewhat manageable, but his molecular structure is reactive to high-voltage electrical fields – every burst of radio, power-line electricity, or neon energy causes his size to increase further until he eventually tops 112 feet and wanders off toward the brightly lit casinos on the Las Vegas Strip.
Wayne’s wife Diane consents to being enlarged herself – now at matching scale she reassures their son, buying Wayne the time he needs to fire a modified miniaturization pulse that restores both giants (and the accidentally upsized family dog) to normal size. A final scene shows Adam healthy at home while Wayne’s lab continues under tighter safety protocols.
Honey, I Blew Up the Kid had a budget of $32 million USD and pulled in $96 million USD at the box office, making it a success by the standards of the industry – though not quite as much of a success of the original film Honey, I Shrunk the Kids which made $222.7 million USD from an $18 million USD budget.
The Lotus Elan M100
The Lotus Elan is typically referred to as the M100 to distinguish itself from the earlier, original Elan and the later Elan 2+2. Though M100 Elan owners might take umbrage at me saying this, the car was a boondoggle of the highest order – Lotus lost millions of dollars of General Motors money on the project, and it remains one of the British automaker’s most infamous white elephants.
In a period review, Autocar magazine called the Elan “the quickest point to point car available.”
That said, it’s not a bad car. It was widely ridiculed for being front-wheel drive, but even those who lambasted it often had to begrudgingly admit it was the best front-wheel drive car they had ever driven. In a period review, Autocar magazine called it “the quickest point to point car available.”
Lotus had been bought by General Motors in 1986, this acquisition led to a number of memorable cars, including the oft-forgotten Chevrolet Corvette ZR-1 (C4) with its extraordinary Lotus-developed quad cam V8 and suspension package.
This acquisition also meant that Lotus suddenly had money again, enough money to pursue the development of a new sports car to succeed the legend that was the first Lotus Elan from 1962.
Many consider the original Elan to be one of the finest handling sports cars ever made by anyone – Formula 1 engineer and supercar designer extraordinaire Gordon Murray says it has the best steering of any car ever made, and he still owns three of them.
The modern Elan M100 was meant as a true successor to the Elan of old, but the decision to make it front-wheel drive did effectively hamstring it in the eyes of many from the get-go.
The car was given a steel backbone chassis, independent front and rear suspension that was beautifully tuned, front and rear disc brakes, excellent weight distribution, and cutting edge styling by Peter Stevens – the man who would (perhaps ironically) go on to design the McLaren F1 alongside Gordon Murray.
Now living very much in the shadow of the Elise, the Elan M100 has a dedicated fanbase of diehard enthusiasts and they always have the same response to anyone who criticizes the car – you have to drive one to understand.
The reason for choosing front-wheel drive was that it would allow Lotus to use an engine and transmission from a pre-existing front-wheel drive production car – in this case the 1.6 liter unit from the Isuzu Gemini. Fitting the drivetrain in the back and making the car rear (or rear-mid) engined would doubtless have pleased the purists more, but ultimately it was decided to stick with the FWD option.
The Elan M100 was offered in both naturally-aspirated and turbocharged form, the turbo was named the Elan SE and it offered 162 bhp, a 0 – 62 mph time of 6.5 seconds, and a top speed of 137 mph (220 km/h).
Despite its promise, there were three things that ultimately undid the Elan M100 – the aforementioned stigma around FWD, the relatively high cost of the car, and the fact that Mazda came along with their own homage to the original Lotus Elan – and they did a better job of it – it was called the Mazda Miata (MX-5).
The Mazda was also quite a bit cheaper. As a result of all this, there were fewer than 4,000 Series 1 Elans made, and 800 Series 2s. Production ran from 1989 to 1995, then Kia bought the design and built their own version from 1996 to 1999.
The reputation of Lotus wasn’t in a good place after the Elan M100 fiasco, but they had an ace up their sleeve that they would release in 1996. It was called the Lotus Elise and it would completely redeem the automaker in the eyes of its fans.
Now living very much in the shadow of the Elise, the Elan M100 has a dedicated fanbase of diehard enthusiasts and they always have the same response to anyone who criticizes the car – you have to drive one to understand.
The Elan M100 Shown Here
The car you see here is a 1990 Lotus Elan M100, it’s for sale on eBay and the seller claims it’s the car used in the 1992 Rick Moranis film Honey, I Blew Up the Kid. The seller does seem to have documentation to back this up, however it’s always critically important to independently verify any claims of this nature.
The Elan M100 was offered in both naturally-aspirated and turbocharged form, the turbo was named the Elan SE and it offered 162 bhp, a 0 – 62 mph time of 6.5 seconds, and a top speed of 137 mph (220 km/h).
This is a turbocharged Elan SE variant from the Series 1 production run, it’s finished in the unusuall-named color “Norfork Mustard” and it has anti-lock brakes, a 5-speed manual gearbox, and a black and red interior.
It’s now being offered for sale out of Melbourne, Florida and you can visit the listing here if you’d like to read more about it or place a bid.
Images courtesy of Ceres US.
Articles that Ben Branch has written have been covered on CNN, Popular Mechanics, Smithsonian Magazine, Road & Track Magazine, the official Pinterest blog, the official eBay Motors blog, BuzzFeed, Autoweek Magazine, Wired Magazine, Autoblog, Gear Patrol, Jalopnik, The Verge, and many more.
Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with well over a million monthly readers from around the world and many hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.
