RE: Lotus Elise Cup 250: Driven

[Vee12V]

mmm-five said:

What are those seats, and where can I buy a set?

Here you go. About £1900... each.

http://deroure.com/partinfo.asp?MAK=1&MDL=43&a...

[silber]

Gandahar said:

Er, they need to sell cars rather than doing your wishful thinking which would sell one car.

To you.

And to me. One of the reasons I got an S1 over an S2 at the time.

A DCT would remove one of the fine experiences of the Elise, which is the superb positioning of the gear lever barely a hands-breadth from the steering wheel. Even if the gearbox isn't a rifle-bolt, it's good enough (at least in my car) to be great fun quickly grabbing changes up and down just for the fun of it.

[HeMightBeBanned]

Nylatron gear linkage bushes and a short shift gear lever sort things out on the K-Series cars. Toyota linkage is a different set of problems. I'll save myself a fortune over the price of the Cup250 and build a 220bhp engine for my S1. 740kg isn't much to move along plenty fast enough.

[Craikeybaby]

I like this a lot, although I'd like it better without the aero addons.

[Adam Ansel]

For the money I would take the Caterham every single time. It is a far purer experience and doesn't look like it was dragged through Halfords backwards.

[Ozzie Osmond]

£100k Boxster?

£50k Elise?

Donald Trump running for president?

These things demonstrate the world truly has gone crazy!

[ZP]

Ozzie Osmond said:

£100k Boxster?

£50k Elise?

Donald Trump running for president?

These things demonstrate the world truly has gone crazy!

Couldn't agree more.

[Richard-G]

Saw one of these coming out of the infield area of Silverstone at the recent WEC race and it looked like it had just come off the racetrack! A young lad with his dad did an excitable jump and punched the air as it passed by!

The best car I ever owned was an Elise, I miss it on a daily basis. Will be getting back into one in the next 12 months so all this variety is good for me!

[s2000db]

Fire extinguisher and battery isolator £2400!

They've been reading the McLaren price list again...

[smilo996]

Nice to see Jean-Marc Gales sticking very much to his guns and getting the absolute maximum out of each of the cars in the range. Shedding weight will please the ghost of Colin Chapman who must have been haunting Hethal on occasion in the period after he died.

Cracking little car.

[Hamma]

andy_s said:

New Evora has a LSD.

Yeah, I hope that's an indicator of a change in philosophy and means that they're working on LSD-options for all of their range in the future.

I have to admit that for me the fact that it doesn't have a LSD just narrowly avoids being a deal breaker with the power of the Elise, but would be on a model with more power. I'd pay a lot for it if it was a factory option though. I'm considering buying an Elise Cup (this 250 Cup or saving a chunk of money by choosing a Cup 220)...

Edited by Hamma on Thursday 28th April 17:32

[kambites]

Hamma said:

Yeah, I hope that's an indicator of a change in philosophy and means that they're working on LSD-options for all of their range in the future.

There's a number of after-market LSDs available for the Elise. The part generally seems to be around £700; I suspect you could get one fitted and still keep the price under what most OEMs charge for an LSD as a factory option?

[gofasterrosssco]

Hamma said:

andy_s said:

New Evora has a LSD.

Yeah, I hope that's an indicator of a change in philosophy and means that they're working on LSD-options for all of their range in the future.

I have to admit that for me the fact that it doesn't have a LSD just narrowly avoids being a deal breaker with the power of the Elise, but would be on a model with more power. I'd pay a lot for it if it was a factory option though. I'm considering buying an Elise Cup (this 250 Cup or saving a chunk of money by choosing a Cup 220)...

Edited by Hamma on Thursday 28th April 17:32

Still trying to work out why you'd want one with a LSD - traction isn't usually an issue and they can promote understeer in this application.

[mikEsprit]

I guess I don't understand the point of making an Elise so track-focused that you are willing to forgo a radio and spend a bunch of money to save a few kg's. Isn't that what the Exige is for?

[Leggy]

Cracking looking Elise. I know what people mean about the added aero parts, but in the flesh they look great.
£50k is a lot but it's exclusive and not a lot of direct competitors.

[kambites]

mikEsprit said:

I guess I don't understand the point of making an Elise so track-focused that you are willing to forgo a radio and spend a bunch of money to save a few kg's. Isn't that what the Exige is for?

The Elise is arguably more track focussed than the Exige these days, being the best part of 250kg lighter.

[Speed_Demon]

Struggling to understand the reasoning behind some of these posts. Are we expecting some sort better value because they are Lotus and not allowed to charge the same as Porsche? I'd actually pay more for the Lotus, when I think of driving dynamics, Lotus is one of the first names I come up with, and this is Pistonheads is it not?

When I think of Porsche, I think "increasingly benign and lacking character", apart from a GT3, GT3RS, Cayman R and Cayman Gt4 of course, which has a mark up equal to that of the Elise 250 Cup over the base model and yet Porsche has a much better economy of scale.

When I'm in the position to own such a breed of cars, I'll pick the Lotus, no matter what the perception of "value" is. I'm paying for sports car and the experience, not a badge.

[giveitfish]

Speed_Demon said:

Struggling to understand the reasoning behind some of these posts. Are we expecting some sort better value because they are Lotus and not allowed to charge the same as Porsche? I'd actually pay more for the Lotus, when I think of driving dynamics, Lotus is one of the first names I come up with, and this is Pistonheads is it not?

When I think of Porsche, I think "increasingly benign and lacking character", apart from a GT3, GT3RS, Cayman R and Cayman Gt4 of course, which has a mark up equal to that of the Elise 250 Cup over the base model and yet Porsche has a much better economy of scale.

When I'm in the position to own such a breed of cars, I'll pick the Lotus, no matter what the perception of "value" is. I'm paying for sports car and the experience, not a badge.

Yup, agree entirely. There are some usual suspects on this thread with the same comments as always - every Lotus should have the tech of a McLaren and the price of a Fiat 500, all with a 3000 per year production run. Cuckoo land.

Also lots of people bemoaning the aero etc. I hope they realise that this is just another choice in the range? It's still possible to buy a very clean looking road biased Elise if you want, that's the bread and butter of the range. This is just the spangly top spec option.

[andy_s]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

C'mon cmoose et al, it's a CUP car, the spoiler is functional if you read the blurb and optional if you don't want a CUP car...

Not liking it is a personal choice, it doesn't mean it's 'glued on tat'.

[unsprung]

that ribald orange colour... looks great, all bright and shouty