Friday, January 22, 2010

Lotus Elise - shouldn't all cars be like this?

The Lotus Elise was introduced 1995 and was an instant success. The concept was quite unusual combining an aluminum chassis and a fiberglass body. This made the car very light. First series Elise were around 700 kg. With this even a small engine like the Rover K with 122 HP could propel the car in less than 7 seconds from 0-100 km/h. Top speed wasn't impressive but who would care. The first cars even had aluminum disc brakes to save weight. Over the years the car got heavier and many electronics aids were introduced. In 2000 the series two with an altered design replaced the nimble series one, that had been sold almost 10'000 times.
Mine was an early 1997 S1 122 HP model with nothing but what was needed to drive fast. Even the windows were manually operated and the disc brakes were still aluminum. No ABS, no ESP, no nothing. The car was yellow and really fun to drive, especially when open. It even was very economical thanks to the low weight. The sound wasn't what you would dream of but okay. I had it for roughly two years and sold it to the next proud owner. From time to time I consider buying one again, maybe a series 2 to feel the difference.

3 comments:

lupoch said...

How was reliability?
One once said on the Elise Mk I: "engineered by God, assembled by monkeys"...
Does LOTUS still stand for Lot Of Troubles Usually Serious?

Bruno von Rotz said...

I didn't have any problems, myself. One battery to change (lack of use) and some servicing. What should go wrong really? The Rover engine has a good reputation and there's not that much more ;-)

John L said...

Never has an Elise. Out of my price range. But the Elan was good. Only problem was replacing the drive donuts.