Smile more with less

摘要

The Elise gives you driving fun and little else - not even big running costs. With dark winter nights now firmly here, thoughts of a basic, pared-to-the-bone, lightweight roadster might not be at the front of your mind. They perhaps should be, though, because now is the time to buy a Lotus Elise Series 1. It was a revelation when it was introduced in 1996, and the passing years have done little to diminish the compact Lotus's appeal. That's reflected in its prices. The Elise S1 has bottomed out at about ￡7500, with the very best examples going for nearly double that, and prices seem to be going only one way: up. The Elise was the antithesis of the the car market when it was introduced. Stripped of any luxuries, it followed Colin Chapman's 'for speed, add lightness' philosophy to the letter. Lotus, with help from Denmark's Hydro Aluminium, created a chassis constructed from bonded extruded aluminium. Light, stiff and strong, it's central to the Elise's weight reduction. The S1 tested by Autocar in July 1996 weighed just 723kg. Take that into consideration and the 118bhp of its 1.8-litre, 16-valve Rover K-series engine is more than ample. It's enough for the featherweight Elise to reach 60mph in just 5.5sec.