Lotus Elise

Lotus Elise

The Lotus Elise is a two seat, rear-wheel drive, mid-engined roadster conceived in early 1994 and released in September 1996 by the English manufacturer Lotus Cars. The car has a hand-finished fibreglass body shell atop its bonded extruded aluminium chassis that provides a rigid platform for the suspension, while keeping weight and production costs to a minimum. The roadster is capable of speeds up to 240 km/h (150 mph). The Elise was named after Elisa, the granddaughter of Romano Artioli who was chairman of Lotus at the time of the car’s launch.



Series 1

Lotus makes cars lightweight instead of making powerful engines in order to achieve performance. Lotus Elise weighs only 725 kg (1,600 lb). (In production form in 1996) For comparison, a Porsche Boxster is 74% heavier at 1,250 kg (2,756 lb). The Series 1 Elise was able to accelerate 0-60 mph in 5.8 seconds despite its relatively low power output of 118 bhp (88 kW; 120 PS). Braking, cornering, and fuel consumption are also improved by the car’s reduced weight. Series 1 was designed by Julian Thomson, then head of design at Lotus, and Richard Rackham, Lotus’s chief engineer. Besides the standard higher-performance variants listed below, Lotus also released some limited edition models such as Sport 135 (1998/9) with approx 145 bhp (108 kW; 147 PS) , Sport 160 (2000) with 150–160 bhp (112–119 kW; 152–162 PS) and Sport 190 (190 bhp (142 kW; 193 PS)). These were more competent on track with sports suspension, wheels and tires, seats according to model. There were other special editions such as the 50th Anniversary Edition (green/gold) celebrating 50 years of Lotus cars, the Type 49 (“Gold Leaf” red and white two-tone), and Type 72 (“JPS” black/gold) which refers to it’s successful Grand Prix car type numbers. 111S A faster edition called the 111S, named after the Lotus type-number of the Elise M111, was introduced in early 1999 and had a VVC Rover K-Series engine with a modified head and VVT technology, producing a declared 143 bhp (107 kW; 145 PS) rather than the standard Rover 1.8 L K-series 118 bhp (88 kW; 120 PS) I4 unit, along with a closer ratio manual gearbox and lower ratio final drive. It also had more padding in the seats. The 111S had headlamp covers, rear spoiler, cross drilled brake discs, alloy window winders and a 6 spoke road wheel design.

111S
A faster edition called the 111S, named after the Lotus type-number of the Elise M111, was introduced in early 1999 and had a VVC Rover K-Series engine with a modified head and VVT technology, producing a declared 143 bhp (107 kW; 145 PS) rather than the standard Rover 1.8 L K-series 118 bhp (88 kW; 120 PS) I4 unit, along with a closer ratio manual gearbox and lower ratio final drive. It also had more padding in the seats. The 111S had headlamp covers, rear spoiler, cross drilled brake discs, alloy window winders and a 6 spoke road wheel design.
Series 2
Announced on October 9, 2000, the Series 2 Elise was a redesigned Series 1 using a slightly modified version of the Series 1 chassis and the same K-series engine with a brand new Lotus-developed ECU.