Lotus: The Light Weight Cars

Lotus, the company was founded by Colin Chapman. Chapman aimed at manufacturing a light weight car that could run fast on the roads. The company has gained tremendous popularity for its sports car Elise. The credit for developing it goes to Max David who hails from London.

Though the new cars produced by Lotus have a modest engine, the cars are light weight and their performance on the road is superb! The cars’ designs and shapes truly focus not only upon the looks, but also the performance. So, the product is highly qualitative. No wonder, because of the light weight (and the design too!), the sports cars by Lotus have gained tremendous popularity.

Lotus Elise, the first sports car by the company was released in September, 1995. Encouraged by the response the car received from the market, the company launched 2 types of this sports car. The first type is Lotus Elise Series 1 and the other type belongs to Series 2.

The first model of Elise weighed around 1500lb (680 kg). Apart from the weight, the car could be driven quite swiftly because of its almost exceptional design to accelerate, corner and brake. No wonder, the car was often compared with Porsche. Not only this, the latter ran on an engine 201bhp (around 149 kW), but this car by Lotus ran fast even on 120bhp (89kW)! Amazing, but true!

Now, the second model of Elise, released by Lotus after the first model’s huge success surprisingly weighed 1488lb (675 kg).

Lotus continued with the Elise models. Yet another one followed. It was Elise 111S, It proved to be fastest car till now produced by the company! The VVC (Variable Valve Control) engine was the highlight of the car. The credit for developing the engine goes to Rover K series.