Hethel, best known to gear heads as the UK headquarters of one of the most coveted of sports car makes: Lotus, have recently let go of a legend.
In the world of lightweight sports cars, the Lotus Elise has reigned supreme as both a benchmark for performance and handling and a representation of a tried-and-tested formula of lightness over power.
Around a week ago on February 24th, the last Elise left Lotus to be picked up by a woman called Elisa Artioli – a lady of Italian descent and with significant ties to the Elise that go back a few decades.
The Lotus Elise 240 Sport Is A Quicker, More Refined Version Of A Legend
Other cars like the Hennessey Venom GT and Tesla Roadster were both based off the Elise design, so capable that the chassis was, whose design goes back to 1995.
Back then, the first Elise was conceived of as a new, 1600 lb. lightweight sports car to take over the mantle of the Esprit, with 118hp from a 1.8-liter Rover engine – it was aluminum, with overhead cams and 16 valves so this engine was no dinosaur.
Unfortunately, the same engine would gain infamy as being unreliable due to head gaskets that would not last, but in any case it was good enough in the fiberglass-bodied Elise to provide a sub-6-second 60 mph time.
For this new more ‘affordable’ sports car Lotus would continue with the ‘E’ naming tradition and so the boss of Lotus and Bugatti at the time, Romano Artioli, used his granddaughter’s name: Elisa.
Elisa Artioli – whose Facebook page is aptly called I Am Lotus Elise - trained as an architect, decided to start a business called Delightful Driving where she takes people through Europe for driving holidays.
The Lotus Elise Carried The Company Into The New Age
The writing was on the wall since 2019 about production ending for the Elise and Elisa, now 28, managed to secure the last car for herself, beating out a long list of other wealthy or influential buyers thanks to her story and connection to the car via her grandfather.
She was only two and half years old when she took part in the unveiling, borrowing the spirit of her name to a special new car that held much hope for the British sports car brand.
For this last customer Elise – the actual last car that will go to Lotus’ Heritage collection - is a gold 240 Sport model, which will sit nicely next to her silver S1 (first generation) Lotus Elise.
As the road-based variant of the final edition Lotus, the 240 Sport is slightly less hardcore than the 250 Cup but still offers up 240 hp from a supercharged Toyota 1.8-liter gasoline engine, with a manual gearbox.
With only 2000 lbs to shift under full throttle, 60 mph can be reached in 4.5 seconds, about the same as a 3-liter turbocharged, 350 hp Audi S5.
It’s not all PR, either; Elisa is a hardcore Lotus Elise fan and has owned her silver first-gen Elise since she was four years old – that’s definitely something that gets our approval.