Lotus does not build many cars like the Lotus Elise: a 2-door 2-seat targa top roadster, built from 1996 to 2021 when airbags, anti-lock brakes and Japanese build quality became the world standard.
The background
The Lotus Elise is a sports car conceived in early 1994 and released in September 1996 by the British manufacturer Lotus Cars. A two-seater roadster with a rear mid-engine, rear-wheel-drive layout, the Elise has a 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 Elise was named after Elisa Artioli, the granddaughter of Romano Artioli, who was chairman of Lotus and Bugatti at the time of the car's launch. Production of the Elise, Exige and Evora ended in 2021. It was replaced by the Lotus Emira.
Under the skin
The record carries the shape — a 2-door 2-seat targa top roadster — and the layout: the engine sits behind the driver and ahead of the rear axle, which puts the mass in the middle of the car and is why mid-engined cars change direction the way they do. The engine, output and weight have not yet reached the open record, and MotorJury does not guess at them.
Where it sits
Where it sits in Lotus's history is not in doubt: the Lotus Elan came before it; the Lotus Emira / Lotus Theory 1 followed it; it was built at Hethel, Norfolk, England. On a showroom list of its day it stood against the Porsche Boxster, the Alfa Romeo 156, the Škoda Auto Škoda Octavia. Its Lotus stablemates include the Lotus 100T and the Lotus 101.