Elise Rival - Ex-Lotus Men Ready Gullwing Roadster

Elise Rival - Ex-Lotus Men Ready Gullwing Roadster

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Firefox

Original Poster:

17 posts

267 months

Thursday 15th August 2002
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Ex-Lotus Men Ready Gullwing Roadster


Here's a supercar that looks as though it's been shrunk in the wash! These small gullwinged coupés were spied while undergoing testing at a disused airfield in Norfolk.

The 140mph pocket rocket is being developed by a Dereham-based engineering firm, Breckland Technology, which is largely staffed by former Lotus employees. They're working on behalf of a chain of Japanese motor accessory shops trading as Autobacs, which wants to build its own sports car.

The carbon fibre Elise rival is set to be available in Japan early next year, and it's hoped UK sales will follow. Power is from a 2.0-litre mid-mounted Nissan Primera engine tuned to more than 200bhp and mated to a six-speed gearbox - enough to give the 900kg machine a 0-60mph time of just over five seconds.


If you want to check out the pictures go to this link
www.autoexpress.co.uk

Gargamel

14,996 posts

262 months

Thursday 15th August 2002
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Interesting idea

I think the market will soon sort out the men from the boys in this sector - jensen going bust - Lotus struggling with products - trident Iceni still haven't delivered, Noble, morgan, farbould, FBS etc

hand made sports cars in the uk for less than 60k with super car prentension is a competitive and small market.

Still Fair ply to them - sounds like good mechanicals - so reliablity should be good - we will see what the finishing/detailing is like.

Red S2 (Toy)

4 posts

261 months

Thursday 15th August 2002
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Even the test mules look gorgeous! I want one.
Bearing in mind they should be very limited production at first, the residuals should be very good.
That is of course unless the get a slating from the press.

adeewuff

567 posts

271 months

Thursday 15th August 2002
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Have discussed this in the news section before... the only problem I have is with that window. Looks like a car drawn by Salvadore Dali!

hungryjim

883 posts

266 months

Saturday 17th August 2002
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Different!

edgar

4 posts

274 months

Sunday 18th August 2002
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Nice front section, hints of 360 Modena and Focus. Mid and rear section too skiny. Should be more robust to match the front styling.

Nice spec though.

lavaman

54 posts

267 months

Monday 19th August 2002
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The front looks like a Ferrari 360, the side with the windows a touch of McLaren F1 and Mazda 6 lookalike rear end without the shiny reflector bits in the lights. Like the VX220 design I think it'll only suit a limited number of colours, perhaps Azure blue and Black but DEFINATELY NOT ORANGE. Yuk!

Yep, the gullwing doors looks quite cool, I wonder if it'll make it into production. Is it expensive to engineer gullwing doors in a production car BTW?

adeewuff

567 posts

271 months

Monday 19th August 2002
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Looking at it from all angles I do have to say... I really like it!! Wasn't sure about the windows at first but they do seem in keeping with the rest of the design.

Good luck to this company, I hope they do produce a car that is better than the Elise since Lotus need some competition to shake them up a bit!