Lotusyota

[absenter]

No slapping needed. Honestly, before I never even looked at Corollas. Just another jap-trap...cough I mean rice burner..I mean. Box car. I didn't even start looking at Lotus until I actually started seeing the the Elise on the road in 06'. Is that when the price dropped or something?

[Razr]

Originally Posted by jamal1984

hey tell me how is it feel in the Lotus, i heard alot peoples said it's fast but it rough.

Yes it's rough - in fact cat eye's can hurt! But the trade off is in the dynamics - There's simply no way you can give an Elise a good push and not come out with a grin from ear to ear

Just thinking back to the times I had in the Elise still puts a big smile on my face, and I haven't driven one for 6+ years! The only car that's ever got my adrenaline pumping more was a 996 911 Turbo - which back then was worth 5x-6x more than the Elise, making it total unobtainium for me

Originally Posted by absenter

I didn't even start looking at Lotus until I actually started seeing the the Elise on the road in 06'. Is that when the price dropped or something?

It's probably because they weren't sold in North America before 2005.

Originally Posted by absenter

So what about the Lotus having a Honda engine in there earlier models as discussed earlier?

The Lotus Elise has never had a Honda engine.

Originally Posted by YarisGuy

Nearly 20 years later, when Lotus began work on the Elise and the Exige, guess who they called to source and engine

Well, all production Elise variants ran a Rover K-Series 1.8L donk from 1996 until 2005, when they then switched to the 2ZZ-GE. So for the first 9 years they presumably didn't call Toyota about an engine However, the Elise GT1 ran an in-house 3.5L V8 from the Esprit, and some of the race versions ran a 6.0L V8 from the Corvette ZR-1.

[turboyaris]

Once upon a time (late 1970s)

you forgot...in a galaxy far far away. I mean come on that makes or breaks the story

[machine1]

The Elise was available with a Honda engine in the states, The B18C5 Type-R, and then later was available with a K-Series mill...

http://www.sportcompactcarweb.com/fe...c_lotus_elise/

In a conversion by Sun International, back in 1999.

[Kaotic Lazagna]

Originally Posted by machine1

The Elise was available with a Honda engine in the states, The B18C5 Type-R, and then later was available with a K-Series mill...

http://www.sportcompactcarweb.com/fe...c_lotus_elise/

In a conversion by Sun International, back in 1999.

I KNEW I SAW THAT SOMEWHERE! i wasn't smoking anything! thanks for the confirm!

[Razr]

Originally Posted by machine1

The Elise was available with a Honda engine in the states, The B18C5 Type-R, and then later was available with a K-Series mill...

http://www.sportcompactcarweb.com/fe...c_lotus_elise/

In a conversion by Sun International, back in 1999.

Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle! Sacrilage!!

It seems Sun converted (both the LHD and the engine) only a handful of them - I suppose anyone could have done this before the car was officially imported into the 'states though..

I do recall many an American on the Lotus forums complaining that the Elise wasn't available in the USA - from what I remember (I didn't pay much attention because they were readily available where I was ) it was to do with emmissions and/or crash regs - either way there used to be some bureaucratic stumbling block. So I guess Sun saw an ooportunity and took it. I'm guessing the engine swap must have been one of the primary gateways to legalizing the thing as you can get 177HP from the 1.8L K-Series so an engine swap that gains 18 odd HP doesn't otherwise seem very logical.

All days gone by now.. An Elise 111 costs USD$120K here, while back home I paid USD$44K for mine. It's worth every cent of $44K, but no way it's worth $120K.

[WRBlue]

I went from lurker to registered for this post :D

Lotus has a long history of using other parts. Because Colin Chapman started the company as a post-WWII "kit car" company. The first road going Lotus car was a modified Austin Six.
One of the most famous Lotuses, the Seven, begain with an Austin engine - then a variety of Fords, and finally a Ford Kent engine with a spiffy Lotus DOHC head.
This engine was used in the Elan, Europa, and the Esprit until the V8 came out in the mid 90s.
My 69 Europa has a Renault engine and transmission (although modified like the Toyota in the Elise/Exige), triumph Spitfire suspensions parts (spindles, brakes, etc), Jaguar door handles, Jensen tail lights, a MG brake master cylinder, and the list goes on.

Its not a big company, and, since Colin died in 1983, has not been a stable company either.
The big hurdle that kept the Elise out of the US was the Rover engine. Rover/Ford/BMW/who ever owned them at the time never even attempted to get EPA and US DOT approval of the engine and so the engine was illegal for the US. The chassis would have been OK after crash testing, but IIRC engine/emmissions testing is much, much more expensive - for a small company such as Lotus with such a small volume (at the time they were selling a couple hundered Esprits a year), it wasn't financially viable. With a Toyota engine, however, it didn't need to be tested ;)