Twenty five years after it was introduced, there is nothing new to be written about the Lotus Elise. Except this: goodbye and thank you for the memories. When the all-new Emira arrives later this year, it will occupy a space in the Lotus model line-up at the expense of the Elise, as well as its sister the Exige and the bigger, costlier Evora as well.
As Lotus signs off the Elise and Exige with these Final Edition models, we bid our own farewell to the pair by going for one last head-clearing blast in both through the Warwickshire countryside. The stresses and tensions of daily life fade away to nothing as you point either prow along a road between the hedgerows, nothing in that moment seeming more important than acing your line through this corner having executed your downshift to perfection on the way in. And it’s that, more than anything to do with sheer speed or performance, that the Emira will have to replicate. So too all the electrified Lotuses that we know will follow soon after.
What a legacy it was the Series 1 Elise left behind. Its wide-eyed face with delicate features, those Julian Thomson lines so pure it almost looks more beach buggy than sports car. The earliest versions with the Metal Matrix Composite brakes weighed less than 730kg, meaning two such Elises are lighter than a modern Porsche 718 Cayman with a driver.
