Race on Sunday, sell on Monday: a time-honed mantra for automakers involved in motorsports. With its latest Elise variant, though, Lotus has turned this into a “race on Sunday, drive to work on Monday” kind of thing.
The Elise S Cup is as close to the Cup R racer as can be and still be road-legal. Lotus first announced the project last September and now the order books are open and the first cars have started rolling down the production line, priced at £43,500 in the UK and €56,525 in Germany.
Compared to the stock Elise S, the Cup version adds a front splitter with end winglets, lateral bargeboards, a rear wing with working diffuser and a fixed rood. Lotus claims that those improvements have increased downforce by 66 kg at 160 km/h (100 mph) and 125 kg at its 225 km/h (140 mph) top speed.
The supercharged 1.8-liter four-cylinder is still the same as the cooking Elise S, pumping out an identical 220PS (217hp) and 250 Nm (184 lb-ft) of torque, so the zero to 60 mph (96 km/h) stays the same, at 4.6 seconds.
Even so, Lotus says that the S Cup is a remarkable 3.0 seconds faster than the S in its own track at Hethel and only 1.0 second slower than the full-on R Cup.
Making the jump from a road to a track car and vice versa easier are a T45-spec roll-hoop that enables installation of a full roll-cage and racing harnesses and a modified electrical system so that the mandatory “kill-switch” and fire extinguisher can be fitted with no hassle.
The order books are open and the first cars have started rolling down the production line, priced at £43,500 in the UK and €56,525 in Germany.
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