Fastest Elise

[kevinday]

Hi Guys, I do not normally lurk in the Lotus part of PH, but I thought you might like to hear this.

In a local Sport Auto magazine here in Hungary they have a feature on a German modified Elise. The car has a BMW M5 motor plus everything else is uprated to match, 380bhp in just under 1,000kg, ultra fast methinks. This modification is available 'off the shelf' in Germany and is (I believe) endorsed by Lotus. The price.... a cool 96,000 Euro.

[rev-erend]

Now that has got to be pretty scary in an Elise !!

[135sport]

I thought it was an Audi motor they dropped in, twin turbo job, with modified body work to suit.

Or is that another conversion?

[adeewuff]

Yes it was an Audi V8 Twin Turbo, I suppose with the M5 having a V8 as well they could have got a little confused.

[kevinday]

Guys you are right, the magazine shows a piccy of the motor and it is definitely Audi, 2.7 V6, twin turbo, 380 LE (bhp) and 440 Nm (324 lbs/ft). My translation may be in error but they definitely mention the M5 in lots of places in the text.

[Jonathan T]

1000kg! A slight weight increase then?

[smeagol]

John its not that big a weight increase. The official weight of the S2 111 is 806kg and has a power of 156bhp (acording to the lotus site). Chapmans philosophy was performance through losing weight and good power to weight ratio. (hence why the seven is still going so strong)
0.8 ton with 156bhp = 195bhp/ton, the car mentioned is 380bhp/ton.

The Elise can no longer be considered a lightweight sports car. There are several cars out there with comparable PTW ratios. Lotus need to realise this and do something.