17 Apr 07
Few cars at any price offer the same intense driving experience as a modern Lotus. When people talk about feeling connected to a car and that car feeling connected to the road, an Elise represents the ultimate expression of the sensation.
It's sold well for such a specialist car, so there's a healthy secondhand market. Many Lotuses are bought as 'boy's toys' and when a new house/baby/tax demand happens along, the toy has to go. And in a few cases, owners just get fed up with the acrobatics involved in squeezing in and out of such a tiny car.
The basic formula has remained the same: aluminium tub, glass fibre body, low weight, engine mounted behind the driver, not much kit. Since it first arrived in 1996, followed by the MkII in 2000, there have been a confusing number of variants, most wearing an Elise badge but others labelled Exige or Europa S. And that's without including the Vauxhall version, the VX220, which was built by Lotus.
Until the start of 2004 Lotus used Rover-supplied K-series engines, but since Rover's demise has switched to Toyota power. The Elise and Exige use a 1.8-litre four-cylinder unit; in the Exige it's available in both naturally aspirated and supercharged guises. The Europa is spurred along by a 2.0-litre turbocharged four, as previously used in the VX220 T.
If you can afford to buy an Elise, you should. But which one?
