The Lotus Elise is one of the oldest sports cars in the business: it was launched back in 1996. The Series 2 introduced in 2000 was but a Series 1 with a chassis modified to meet more stringent European crash test regulations. The Series 3 launched in early 2010 was itself a refreshed version of the car before it, while subsequent derivatives of the car have focused on shaving off weight while keeping just about the same bones. The most recent example would have to be the Elise Sprint tipping the scales at just 798 kilograms.
For an entirely new Elise, we’ll have to wait until 2020 when the peeps from Hethel will introduce the next generation. The car was actually previewed way back in 2010 by a namesake concept, which has served as foundation for our weekly speculative render. If the real deal takes inspiration from the showcar presented in Paris almost seven years ago, we believe there’s a lot to get excited about. The concept is still a looker and its design somehow hasn’t aged at all.
Lotus, through the voice of its boss, Jean-Marc Gales, has already revealed the new Elise is going to be a tad larger than the current model, but even so, the engineers will keep the weight under 1,000 kilograms. Achieving this objective will be possible by implementing a newly developed bonded and extruded aluminium chassis.
For a trip down memory lane, we’ve attached a gallery of the 2010 Lotus Elise concept. As a final note, the car was supposed to morph into a production model for the 2015 model year, but you all know what happened…
Render: OmniAuto.it
Gallery: 2010 Lotus Elise concept
