Description
Lotus Elise S1, genuine low mileage (49, 000) with service history. Fitted factory-spec hardtop, original soft top in good condition. It's all original spec, apart from a set of Bilstein dampers and braided brake hoses, it hasn't been modified and is still very smart and tidy throughout with minimal age related marks. Recent cambelt, service and fresh MoT. I took this as a part exchange on a Lotus single seater race car, but I was happy to do that because this S1 is a smart, usable, known quantity, and I reckon it's the original and best model in the series. Before Lotus softened everything to cater for demand from people who were used to front wheel drive... If you've never driven an Elise, be prepared for a breath of fresh air. No power assisted anything, weighs just over 700 kilos so it makes best use of 120HP, and you can drive it to a circuit, rag it round all day and still have the same brake pedal feel as you started with. Might part exchange for something older and classic, especially if it's wacky and American. It was a back to basics attempt by Lotus, partly for budgetary reasons, but also because the Lotus mantra of simplicity and lightness, implanted by Colin Chapman all those years ago, was still intact. I drove the first launch cars and they were such a breath of fresh air. They still are, partly because the engineers had to make some compromises to keep costs down. So they aren't perfect, but neither are most Ferraris of the same period, and those cost a lot more...
