LOTUS SPORT ELISE 190

The Type 111 Lotus Elise was well established with full order books, however Lotus felt the need to press ahead with the development of a radically uprated variant to satisfy those customers that wanted either the ultimate track day machine or a fully fledged competition car. Known as the ‘Sprint’, it was quickly deemed too extreme to make it commercially viable, but the idea of a high-performance Elise had not gone away and in November 1997, Lotus unveiled a more practical proposition - the Sport 190.

Intended primarily for track use, the Sport 190 wasn’t strictly road-legal as it had never been through 'Type Approval', but to get around this, each car was sold as a standard Elise and then converted to Sport 190-spec by Lotus Special Vehicle Operations. Although the conversion could be carried out on an existing car, the overwhelming majority of Elise built to Sport 190 specification were converted from brand new cars taken straight from the production line.

The first customer cars were built in February 1998 and each Sport 190 cost around 40% more than the standard variant. The list of enhancements was extensive and included more powerful engines (hand-built by Lotus’ race technicians) and suspension, gearbox, brakes, wheels, tyres and safety equipment were all designed/upgraded with competition in mind.

The suspension set-up was courtesy of re-rated, mono-tube Koni dampers and competition Eibach springs which enabled the ride-height to be dropped by up to 50mm. A higher-rate adjustable front anti-roll bar was added along with toe-links on Uniball joints. Uprated, cross-drilled and ventilated disc brakes were fitted all round and to reduce fade during track use, the discs were now made from cast iron instead of aluminium. Front calipers were new Lotus-AP Racing items and standard Brembo units were retained at the back fitted with race-spec Pagid brake pads; a lightweight competition battery was also installed.

At the heart of the Sport 190 was another all-alloy Rover K-series inline ‘four’ complete with the normal dual overhead camshafts and four-valves per cylinder. To extract the maximum levels of performance, Rover Sport and Lotus had collaborated to create a reconfigured Very High-Performance Derivative (VHPD). The VHPD engine featured a modified cylinder head plus redesigned valves, pistons, crankshaft and flywheel and solid valve-lifters enabled it to rev to 8,000rpm. The VHPD unit also came with carbon fibre air box, a competition air filter, supplementary oil cooler and the catalytic converter was removed. It was supplied as a complete assembly intended for competition use and was not covered by the normal warranty. Peak output went from 118bhp at 5,500rpm and 122lb/ft at 3,000rpm to 190bhp at 7,000rpm and 140lb/ft at 5,600rpm fed through a special close-ratio gearbox and single-plate clutch.

Externally, the cars were fitted with thinner fibreglass composite body panels, a lightweight poly-carbonate rear window, a towing eye and an emergency power cut-off switch. Interior upgrades included an FIA-approved Corbeau competition seat with 6-point harness, an FIA-approved roll-over bar, removable steering wheel with a red leather rim, a battery cut-off switch and a fire extinguisher. To further save weight, the alarm, immobiliser, audio system, and floor mats were discarded.

Customers could further enhance their cars by specifying a range of optional extras from Lotus including a passenger seat, plumbed-in fire system, metallic paint, spotlights, headlight covers and a lightweight sports exhaust which took output to nearer 200bhp. Also available were expensive carbon fibre front and rear clamshells.

If configured to the lightest possible specification, the Sport 190 had a dry weight of just 670kg (this compared to 755kg for the standard Elise). The 0-62mph time dropped from 5.8 seconds to 4.4 seconds, 0-100mph required just 10.7 seconds and the top speed went from 126mph to 'about 150mph'.

Production of the Sport Elise (190 by S.V.O) - as Lotus actually refer to the car as - only ran for the 1998 and 1999 model year (with S.V.O. subsequently becoming Lotus Sport), with just 59 examples being built in total.

The car presented here is a 1999 Lotus Sport Elise (190), ratified by its accompanying Certificate of Provenance and a letter from Lotus (see images). It confirms that this car was built in April 1999 in left-hand drive configuration for the USA, left the production line in the April and was upgraded by the Special Vehicle Operations to the Sport 190 specification, including a race fuel-filter for the US-market cars.

It is the 50th example, out of 59, the 16th out of 21 cars for the USA, and the 18th out of 20 cars in Mustard Yellow Spice Metallic worldwide. It was imported to the UK in 2018 by our vendor, who is a real Lotus enthusiast, being an ex-Lotus employee and member of The Lotus Motor Club. He wanted the best possible Sport Elise 190 he could find and knew immediately that this car was in fantastic original condition (see images of underside), with low mileage, service history and paperwork from the US and had obviously led a cosseted life. For peace of mind, in September 2018, he oversaw the most thorough of recommissioning programs and then fastidiously documented the car’s continued maintenance carried out over his six year ownership by himself and a Lotus-trained technician.

Our vendor, the car's third owner, states: 'When I got it from America my main aim was to get it back to stock 190 spec; it wasn't far off, the window tint was removed, various bits were refreshed (as per summary of ownership document; see images), the ride height and alignment were sorted at Hethel and some mods to the fan circuit were rectified. I am fortunate to know a highly-experienced vehicle and powertrain technician from the Lotus factory at Hethel who has worked there since before the Elise was built, and still does. He and another did the ride height and alignment at Hethel, and he also did other work as detailed in the summary of ownership document (see images)'.

The car is accompanied by an MOT until 23rd June 2025, two keys, its original LHD lights (RHD are fitted), a 'race' ECU (never used by current owner; increases the RPM limit to 8,000rpm, and is referred to in the Lotus Elise S1 Service Notes), a CAT bypass pipe (CAT is on car for MOT) and its bag for the roof components.

This is an extremely rare car with interesting provenance and is remarkably versatile, being comfortable on both road and track with some serious performance available and who knows when a similar opportunity will come around again.