There's no stopping Lotus's development engineers at the moment. While others in the company - perhaps buoyed by news that Volvo-saviour Geely has bought a majority stake - work hard on the 2020 Elise, others focus on making the current 21-year-old model ever-better. After relishing the bantamweight new Sprint, now it's the turn of the Elise range-topper: the Cup 250.
Dry weight from 860kg is the big news
the Cup 250
replaced the old Cup 220. This time, there's no more power from the trusty 1.8-litre supercharged Toyota motor, so there's no official difference in acceleration: 0-60mph in 3.9sec, or 0-62mph in 4.3sec. Lotus still claims this is the fastest four-cylinder sports car it's ever made, though, because it has cut yet more weight from the car itself - and has also further upgraded the suspension.
Weight first: the kerbweight is now 917kg, dry weight is 884kg and ultimate dry weight - if you go for all the options such as the £3,400 carbon aero pack (-3kg), £3,000 carbon hard top (-3kg) and £4,000 titanium exhaust (-7kg) - is down to 860kg. Lotus chucks in another weight, too: 125kg. That's the amount of downforce generated by the aero kit - front splitter, barge boards, rear diffuser and rear wing - at 140mph.
The chassis is stiffened up further by a T45 motorsport hoop, and the Bilstein dampers that are paired with Eibach springs are now, front-to-rear, 12 per cent and nine per cent firmer in compression, 20 per cent and a hefty 30 per cent firmer in rebound. Forged alloy wheels are shod with Yokohama Advan A048 LTS tyres (which cut unsprung mass further by 1kg per corner with £1,500 of two-piece disc brakes) and features such as a polycarbonate rear screen and lithium-ion battery add further motorsport cues.
More aero means more speed!
Lotus hand-builds the carbon race seats, which it clads in Alcantara, or you can have leather or its cool 70s-style tartan for £1,000. Other non-purist, but likely essential, bits include £1,250 of air con, a £350 sound insulation kit and a £400 Clarion stereo with Bluetooth. You can even have cruise control for £110 (and that doesn't add on any weight whatsoever).
Group Lotus CEO Jean-Marc Gales says the 2017 Elise Cup 250 has been created with PHers in mind. Well, indirectly. "We know what existing Lotus enthusiasts demand from our cars... the new Elise Cup 250 has taken the fight beyond the reach of lesser rivals and, at just 860kg, it shows that we are ahead of the curve in developing lightweight, intelligently-engineered sports cars".
It's yours from £47,400, and if you want to know what it drives like, stay tuned: we'll be doing just that very soon.