Lotus Elise
2005/2006 Lotus Elise seen and photographed at the Murray Brothers Garage.
The Lotus Elise is a two-seat, rear-wheel drive, mid-engined roadster conceived in early 1994 and released in September 1996 by the British manufacturer Lotus Cars. 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. It is capable of speeds up to 240 km/h (150 mph). 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, to be replaced by a new family of models.
The above car, a Series 2 Elise model comes in a European 111R version or a version sold in North America, referred to as the Federal Elise. It is powered by the all-aluminum alloy 189 hp (192 PS; 141 kW) 1.8 L (1,796 cc) DOHC Toyota 2ZZ-GE with a Yamaha designed twin-cam head offering variable valve timing on both intake and exhaust valvetrain and a Toyota C64 6-speed manual transmission. Although the engine was borrowed from Toyota, its tune for the Elise was done in-house by Lotus. Many tests show performance of 0–60 mph (0–97 km/h) in approximately 4.9 seconds, or 4.7 seconds with the Sport Package.
The 2005 Lotus Elise was the first to be sold commercially in the United States, in the summer of 2004. Approval for the Elise, however, required intervention by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) which provided a three-year exemption for the car, as it had failed to meet US bumper and headlight regulations. The first-year model suffered from a few flaws, most notably a design flaw in the headlamps that magnified the sun's light, allowing the inside of the lamp housings to be melted by the sun.
This model was followed up by the 2006 Model Year Elise 111R and Sports Racer models. Lotus made a limited production (50 in the US) called the Lotus Sport Elise. 2006 models differ from the 2005 models in a few aspects. 2006 models sport LED tail lights, drive by wire (an updated ECU), improved fuel consumption, and more comfortable ProBax seats.
Lotus Elise
2005/2006 Lotus Elise seen and photographed at the Murray Brothers Garage.
The Lotus Elise is a two-seat, rear-wheel drive, mid-engined roadster conceived in early 1994 and released in September 1996 by the British manufacturer Lotus Cars. 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. It is capable of speeds up to 240 km/h (150 mph). 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, to be replaced by a new family of models.
The above car, a Series 2 Elise model comes in a European 111R version or a version sold in North America, referred to as the Federal Elise. It is powered by the all-aluminum alloy 189 hp (192 PS; 141 kW) 1.8 L (1,796 cc) DOHC Toyota 2ZZ-GE with a Yamaha designed twin-cam head offering variable valve timing on both intake and exhaust valvetrain and a Toyota C64 6-speed manual transmission. Although the engine was borrowed from Toyota, its tune for the Elise was done in-house by Lotus. Many tests show performance of 0–60 mph (0–97 km/h) in approximately 4.9 seconds, or 4.7 seconds with the Sport Package.
The 2005 Lotus Elise was the first to be sold commercially in the United States, in the summer of 2004. Approval for the Elise, however, required intervention by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) which provided a three-year exemption for the car, as it had failed to meet US bumper and headlight regulations. The first-year model suffered from a few flaws, most notably a design flaw in the headlamps that magnified the sun's light, allowing the inside of the lamp housings to be melted by the sun.
This model was followed up by the 2006 Model Year Elise 111R and Sports Racer models. Lotus made a limited production (50 in the US) called the Lotus Sport Elise. 2006 models differ from the 2005 models in a few aspects. 2006 models sport LED tail lights, drive by wire (an updated ECU), improved fuel consumption, and more comfortable ProBax seats.