tommallett

I have a lot of experience with the Lotus Elise. I am older than my sister, but not by much and as we were approaching our 17th birthdays my father decided, partly because he fancied one, that we ought to have a Lotus Elise to accompany our thoroughly unexciting learner cars.

‘Our’ Elise is a basic 118bhp Rover K-Series powered car. This does not sound like a lot of power largely because it isn’t, but a sports exhaust has made it sound and go a little bit better. But the reality is that straight line performance is not the raison d’etre of the diminutive Lotus.

It only weight 780kg and it feels reasonably quick up to about 70mph, but is lethargic over 100mph, however the maximum UK speed limit is 70mph so I can live with that.

But the beauty of the Elise is the way it feels. When I hop in the Elise it immediately feels like a driver’s car, the sills are wide and made from aluminium and the seats are figure hugging. The pedals, and I’ll get onto those in a minute, are alloy and the instruments are simple, but clear. Then you start it up and it is obviously mid-engined, clearly the Elise was built to handle.

The Elise has some of the best steering feel I have experienced in a modern car, it also has tactile, well spaced pedals that allow you to heal ‘n toe with ease, pair this to a peppy four-cylinder engine and you have a great ‘B’ road machine, one that requires all of your attention due to its lack of ABS and traction control, but which pays your effort back in spades.

I have driven plenty of other variants of the Elise including a few Exige, one of which I did my ‘ARDS’ test in, I still love the basic MK 1 that is parked in the garage though.

That’s not to say I would turn down an Elise 111R, has anyone got one for sale?

Photo credits: Tom BKK
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