Lotus Elise, a bombshell with a temperament!

When we talk about small, playful sports cars that take to the mountain roads, we inevitably think of Lotus. In this article we will talk about the Lotus Elise.

In 1994, when Lotus was close to bankruptcy and had just lost its F1 team for lack of financial means, the manufacturer had to get back on its feet. To do this, Lotus had to go back to the fundamentals of the brand and find an idea...

The Elise made its first appearance at the Frankfurt Motor Show in 1995. A fiberglass body, an engine of Rover origin which was able to push it to 240km/h in top speed! But this name does not come from nowhere.

Indeed, at that time Lotus had Romano Artioli as CEO, just like Bugatti. The day of the presentation of the Elise, a little girl was at the wheel: it was Elisa who was none other than the granddaughter of Artioli! The Elise was equipped with a 1.8L atmospheric 4-cylinder engine, producing 120 HP and 165Nm of torque.

The press was amazed by the performances of this car: an impressive road holding, a lightness without name compared to its competitors thanks to its chassis and its aluminium suspensions. A surprising anecdote, the chassis was glued with epoxy and baked, a technique that only Lotus used, to obtain a chassis of only 65kg!

The engine in the rear position as well as its mass of 700kg made it a formidable weapon on the track. This allows it to do 0-100km/h in less than 6s! The chassis of the Elise was also used for the Opel Speedster but also for the Hennessey Venom GT, one of the fastest cars in the world at that time.

Over the years three generations of Elise (S1/S2/S3) have been designed.

Lotus even competed in the 1997 Le Mans 24 hours with an Elise GT1, equipped with a Chevrolet 5.7L V8, but unfortunately without success.

The second generation (S2), dating from 2001, was heavier than the S1, but offered a bigger engine with a 136 HP Toyota engine. Then the Elise SC with compressor developing 220 hp as well as the 2-Eleven, a radical version of 252 hp for less than 700kg!

It is in 2010 that the third generation appeared. Heavier than its predecessors (about 900kg), it gave birth to many variants.

Hugo CORTES