One reality, and enemy, of sports car design over the last 30 years has been the inescapable escalation of vehicle weight. While two-seat performance cars have become more comfortable, more reliable and safer in recent decades, they have also become rather portly, at least by sports car standards.
Sadly, if you've wanted both performance and light weight in one machine, you've pretty much had to give up the new-car smell (not to mention modern technology, reliability and safety features) and start shopping the classifieds. But all that ended with the introduction of the Lotus Elise to the U.S. market for 2005. The Elise has been on sale in Europe since 1996, but European demand for the vehicle, along with stringent U.S. crash standards, kept it from leaping the pond -- except for a limited race-only version that wasn't legal to operate on public roads.
The second-generation release of the Elise in 2000 finally gave Lotus the opportunity to plan for a U.S.-certified version. It's true that meeting U.S. crash standards has required the addition of airbags and other safety features that add weight. And Lotus knew that even sports car fans in this country have trouble sacrificing amenities for the sake of performance, so the U.S. Elise comes standard with air conditioning, antilock brakes and an AM/FM/CD audio system. But don't look for stability control or power steering on this sports car. Lotus was willing to bend the Elise's original "weight is the enemy" philosophy for American tastes, but the company refused to break it. The carmaker managed to keep the U.S. Elise's curb weight under the 1-ton mark. At 1,975 pounds, the Elise is easily the lightest performance car sold in this country.
With so little weight to push around, there's not a huge need for power. Therefore, the Lotus Elise has a Yamaha-built, Toyota-badged 1.8-liter, four-cylinder engine. This is the same engine found in the Toyota Corolla XRS, but it's been tuned by Lotus to broaden the power band and bump peak horsepower to 190. That's more than enough power to manage the Elise's increased weight, and Lotus says the car will sprint from zero to 60 mph in under 5 seconds. There's no doubt that the 2006 Lotus Elise is a special car. For the money, you're not going to find a more thrilling driving experience out of a new production car. Just be aware that this is a no-frills, race-oriented machine. Even the Honda S2000, a car we've previously said as being quite minimalist, seems rather posh in comparison. Those wanting a roadster that can provide more day-to-day functionality than the Elise while still providing plenty of driving excitement will want to check out Porsche's Boxster or the aforementioned S2000.
