LOTUS ELISE: HAYNES ENTHUSIAST GUIDE SERIES Alastair Clements
Foreword by Adrian NeweyRRP: £19.99, ISBN: 978 1 84425 574 0Format: Hardback, Publication Date: July 2009
Essential reading for all Elise owners and enthusiastsThe Elise saw the return of the genuinely exciting sports car. This was thefirst Lotus for a generation truly to revive Colin Chapman's ideals, provinga worthy successor to the seminal Lotus 7. The Elise was the first modernsports car to generate real enthusiasm, tempting many classic car fans tochange their allegiance to this no-compromise contemporary classic.Innovative in its extruded and bonded aluminium construction, thrilling todrive, yet surprisingly affordable and usable, the Elise has become a legendin its own lifetime for its mixture of track-day ability and accessiblesports car fun on the road. Conceived as a plaything, the ground-breakingLotus captured buyers' imaginations and forced the hand of its maker intoturning the Elise into a full production model, one that went on to spawnthe extreme, track- focused 340R, Exige and 2-Eleven, as well as the morecomfort- orientated 111S and Europa plus the badge-engineered OpelSpeedster, Vauxhall VX220 and electric Tesla Roadster.Since the shock unveiling of the Lotus Elise at the Frankfurt Motor Show in1995, the little Lotus has ploughed its own furrow through the market thatit helped to revive. The Elise proved equally happy on the road or thetrack, and its instant cult status turned a limited-run fun car into a fullproduction model. As its rivals have grown heavy, laden with ever-biggerengines and more luxury, so Lotus has continued to keep its revolutionaryroadster ahead of the game, by going back to its core principles ofperformance through innovation and light weight.This Haynes Enthusiast Guide tells the complete story of the Elise, from thefirst concept sketched to production, through gentle evolution into Sport135 and 111S to the revolution of the S2, the arrival of Toyota power, thesales surge into America and more, right up to the launch of its bigbrother, the Evora. With extensive input from its creators, plus owners,racers and the specialists who repair and improve them, this is theessential guide to one of the most important sports car of the modern era.This book takes you behind the scenes of the Elise's inception, creation andaunch, told through the eyes of the multi-talented team that steered itsdevelopment. It follows the model's evolution and expansion into a wholerange of thrilling, driver-orientated sports cars - including the Exige,340R, 2- Eleven and Europa - plus meets owners and guides potentialpurchasers through the minefield of buying second-hand.
Having trained as an architect, author Alastair Clements was lucky enough toturn his passion for cars into a career when he joined Classic & Sports Carmagazine in 1998. He later worked as a senior road tester for sister titleAutocar and editor of autocar.co.uk before returning to Classic & SportsCar as deputy editor. His first book for Haynes was Elise: Rebirth of theTrue Lotus, published in 2003, which has been thoroughly revised andextended to create this Haynes Enthusiast Guide on the Lotus Elise.
Other titles currently available in the Haynes Enthusiast Guide Seriesinclude:VW Beetle by Jonathan HarveyVW Transporter by Jonathan HarveyLand Rover Discovery by Dave Pollard
