Toyota should take a hint from Lotus. Sports cars should pack more punch, not succumb to ecomentalist asthma. And Lotus uses Toyota engines.

Lotus just announced that it will be offering a supercharger kit for naturally aspirated Elise and Exige models. This is the same supercharger found in the beefier Elise SC. The kit is fitted to the Toyota 2ZZ-GE engines that two nimble Lotus cars pack.

The kit consists of a integrated intake manifold, high-flow fuel injectors and a re-programmed ECU. These increases the power by 29 horses from 189 hp to 218. The max torque is also increased to 155 lb-ft from 133 and is reached at lower revs of 5,000 rpm instead of 6,800 rpm.

If you’re worried about emission and other state laws, Lotus guarantees that the kit is legal in 50 states.

“Lotus Elise and Exige owners are genuine driving enthusiasts and that’s what has attracted them to Lotus cars in the first place,” said Lotus Cars USA, Inc. Director of Operations Arnie Johnson. “They will fully appreciate the dramatically enhanced driving character these Lotus Supercharger Kits will bring their vehicles and the peace of mind from a fully warranted, factory engineered kit.”

Fancy one? Just contact your Lotus dealer.

Lotus is introducing a cheaper but feature-packed variant for its Elise sports car, dubbed the “Purist Edition”. The car will be built around the Sports trim, complete with the optional Touring features. More importantly, it will start of at $44,920—over $3,000 cheaper than the base Elise.

The car will be powered by a standard 1.8-liter engine that pushes it to the tune of 189 horsepower. The top speed is at 150mph, with a 0-60mph time of 4.9 seconds. Lotus says the car is good for 21mpg in city traffic, while it gets 27mpg on the highway.

Only the iPod interface, leather-trimmed transmission tunnel, and leather door inserts aren’t included among the Touring options included in the Elise Purist Edition. It will be available in three colors: Ardent Red, Monaco White, and Saffron Yellow. The car will have a black leather interior, a leather Momo steering wheel, a CD player, and a starter button. Yokohama tires and 17-inch alloy wheels are also included.

Lotus is hoping that the lower price for a feature-packed trim will get more people to buy the car from US dealerships.

Source: Motor Authority

The British International Motor Show’s just about a little over a week away. One of the attractions of the show is the Greener Driving Pavilion which will showcase green initiatives from automakers as a part of the whole save-the-earth through gas-sippers move.

The Lotus Elise has been known to be that agile sports car that could take on more massive cars in winding roads due to its lightweightedness that improves its handling. Its 1.8L engine isn’t really a gas-guzzler compared to other cars and the fact that the car’s light improves fuel efficiency.

Now, they’ve decided that they’d make the car even more fuel-efficient in the Lotus Eco Elise. In true Elise fashion, they just trimmed off some more weight out. They took a Lotus Elise S, put it on a treadmill to shave off 70.5 lbs, and called it Eco. This was done by swapping some of the body panels to sustainable hemp technical fibers. Au natural.

The carpets are even made from sisal, a renewable crop yet abrasives-resistant. The paint on this thing is totally water-based (eliminating solvent emissions into the atmosphere). You just have to wonder whether it will wash off though. A few geek-greening they did here was slapping on a solar panel to help charge the car battery. They also placed a shift light to help drivers achieve bang-on shifting to avoid unnecessary revving.

Source: RevMods

I’m rewatching some older Clarkson stuff and just got through The Good, The Bad and The Ugly which is basically a humorous take on American cars. Quite unfair and biased stuff coming from Jeremy Clarkson especially when the Mustang was pitted against the Lotus Elise in a track battle.

That race, while biased, sealed the appeal of the Elise for me. And the 2008 Lotus line-up features a drool-worthy item in the Supercharged Elis SC. While in terms of stat sheets the old Elise and this new one are quite similar, the Exige SC features an all-new non-intercooled installation applied to the 1.8L 2-ZZ VVTL-i engine. The supercharge is tweaked to deliver the performance but slices 8 kgs off the car’s weight.

Speed and agility describes the Elise best and the numbers are quite phenomenal with naught to sixty at 4.4 seconds, a top speed of 150 mph and a green-ish 31 mpg (in sports car range).

Source: Lotus