Lotus Elise: Peal on Driving an Elise

From: grplotus@paston.co.uk
Subject: General replies
Date: Tue, 16 Apr 1996 16:24:07 +0000

(stuff about the new V8 Esprit deleted...)

Just to wind up Elise-dreamers more, I took the silver mileage-accumulation car to Donington on Saturday last. It's 150 miles of mostly single-carriage roads across themiddle of England, with some brilliant i.e. fun roads. We allowed 3 1/2 hours, did it in 2 1/2 hours, hit 122 mph (naturally not on the Queen's Highway, m'lud) on a flat road with no wind assistance, averaged 60 mph, and the fuel consumption was better than 45 mpg (UK gallons at that, too). More to the point, I was still grinning today!

Stormwalker asked about Daewoo: they're "out of the frame" and that's official, from our Financial Director. We haven't been sold, or invested in, (yet) but I reckon that there are some serious discussions going on.

Alan Perry asked about getting on the Elise list - the answer's simple: find a dealer in a territory where the car will be sold, and offer him a deposit of =A31000 sterling. That should do the trick!

Ben Levy asked about the non-symmetrical seating in Elise - I should explain that the chassis is symmetrical (and can be used for either LHD or RHD as the mounting points for the seats and the controls (pedals and steering) are included for both hands. The seats themselves are mounted offset by choosing the appropriate locations.

Incidentally, the interior mirror is also offset to the passenger side by 6 inches (150 mm) to improve the driver's forward field of view to the nearside. It works, too!

The first European journalists have driven the V8 Esprit; among them the great Paul Frere, who writes for Road and Track, Car Graphic, etc. He thought the engine was superb, the handling and braking excellent, the car "very comfortable", and the gearbox "not so good". His comments were appreciated and absorbed (and not unexpected).

Cheers

Patrick Peal

Head of Communications

Lotus Cars Ltd