Category: Roadsters 
Price Range: £24,500 to £29,945
Still one of the best driver's cars on sale at any price. Now, with the availability of the S model, there's a great-value entry-level model too, complementing the high-performance R. The Elise is more desirable than ever.
It can't match 'softer' rivals for comfort, but then, that's not its remit. Just be aware that it's noisier, less cosseting and harder than a Boxster.
The perfect example of evolution. It just gets better as the years pass.
The Elise is pretty much hand-built. And they've been building them for over a decade now; add in a policy of continuous improvement, using feedback from dealers, plus all the company leant from building the Vauxhall VX220, and you've the best-built Lotus ever. Even the paint is as lustrous as a 'metal' car, thanks to ongoing work with supplier DuPont. Of course, that it's so simple helps no end, as does using an engine and gearbox from those benchmarks of quality, Toyota. You'll still hear the suspension work and there will be the odd rattle inside - to be expected from an extruded aluminium chassis, with all its echoey hollows - but the solidity of the Elise is not in question.
Latest Readers' Drives About the Lotus Elise
wrote on 22 12 2007
wrote on 18 09 2007
wrote on 30 03 2007