Elise/Exige with new engines at IAA Frankfurt 2011

[newelise]

Some Lotus dealers know more: the Exige will get the V6 Toyota engine from the Evora and the Elise will get the 1.6 or 1.8 turbocharged Toyota engine with 220PS but more torque then the SC. They will be present at the IAA Frankfurt (15.-25.09.11).

[kambites]

Hmm. A turbocharged Elise? Doesn't sound good to me.

[the ronin]

Yeah that would be the last thing you would want in an Elise...
http://www.radiumauto.com/blog-page.php?Turbo-Kit-...

[Boggy]

newelise said:

Some Lotus dealers know more: the Exige will get the V6 Toyota engine from the Evora and the Elise will get the 1.6 or 1.8 turbocharged Toyota engine with 220PS but more torque then the SC. They will be present at the IAA Frankfurt (15.-25.09.11).

Didn't think the Elise was going to be ready, Top Work

Boggy

[bencollins]

Thats great news.
To be fair to Lotus, they've been a bit hamstrung by Toyotas rather average petrol engines of late, tho they did a great job with the SC.

[peter450]

Yes the 2ZZ was yota's responce to the VTEC, and for a 1.8 was very good imo, if it had been 2 litre it would have been on a par with the Honda

I guess they just dont see any future in that market anymore, hence why no replacement, and going for standard inline 4's with a turbo bolted on to give more go

The S/C was great lotus addition, although yota had done a SC installation on the 2ZZ ages ago, and i wish lotus had bought it out sooner

Yota's current engine lineup is ok i guess, although i think lotus made a major mistake on the standard car downsizing to a 1.6, especially when the 1.8 litre version of the same engine musters up a useful 15 HP more + more torque, with very little extra in the way of C02 or increase in fuel consumption

120/130 hp might have been fine 10 years ago and when the car was lighter, but in todays workd with hot hatches packing 200+ and the weight gain, lotus really needed circa 150hp for the base car to keep it's relative performance at the same level as elises past

The thing that puzzled me most, was they had the idea 1.8 engine for that, but instead chose to downsize the capacity, which was a mistake imo, the car just does not grap the attention in 1.6 guise IMO, and has worse performance than the outging 1.8 yota, i really do not know what they were thinking with that one, hopefully they will do something about that at frankfurt, the base car needs it's performance increasing, it looks awfully expensive for the go on offer in 2011 frankly

Some might say that miss's the point of the Elise, well perhaps, but the elise and lotus are marketed as sports car's and there are certain expetation of what a sports car and a lotus should be like, and being fast is just as much a part of that as being lightweight with decent handling

[bordseye]

peter450 said:

Some might say that miss's the point of the Elise, well perhaps, but the elise and lotus are marketed as sports car's and there are certain expetation of what a sports car and a lotus should be like, and being fast is just as much a part of that as being lightweight with decent handling

I think I would say that. The origin of a "sports car" was a car you could drive down to the pub and then still take racing / hillclimbing at the weekend. It always had a soft top and two seats.

Maybe things have changed but to me there is no way that a hot hatch is a sports car as opposed to a souped up family shopping car. And whilst power / performance do matter. a sports car is more about how it does what it does than outright statistics. After all, would you condider a 3 series diesel as a sports car - yet on the open roads, the bigger engined ones can be difficult to pass in an Elise.

I recently drovce one of the 1.6s at a Lotus training day at Hethel, and I really didnt find it the slightest bit short of fun when compared to my R Elise.

[PiB]

The Exige gets a V6 yet they say no more Elise or Exige for the US market is what I understand. Very sad. The V6 will make the Exige very interesting to buyers here.