Elise pedal designer

[Nick J]

Just as a point of interest for the forum, I went to a Black Tie do and the guy sitting next to me was the man responsible for the design of the pedals for the Lotus Elise.

He used to work for Lotus F1 then moved to Lotus when the funding was pulled. Now he works for Ascari as a designer. Just thought I would share this with you as I thought it might be of interest.

Nick

[greysquirrel]

must have taken ages to design those pedals! was that his only job?

[alicrozier]

I guess he must be pi$$ed off now that they've ditched them.
MY06 has 'orrible steel ones - lighter though...

[DanH]

alicrozier said:

I guess he must be pi$$ed off now that they've ditched them. MY06 has 'orrible steel ones - lighter though...

And without the dead pedal travel according to Chris Harris' review in autocar last week.

[S Works]

Electrically operated throttle on a Lotus.

Er, no thanks I'll stick with a cable.

[TheLemming]

He did a fantastic job.

The S1 pedals are a work of art.

[Nick J]

TheLemming said:

He did a fantastic job. The S1 pedals are a work of art.

I said that to him, we had a very drunken chat about the one piece extruded aluminium pedal. Our women thought we were utter geeks but at the time it was really interesting, it was strange how after about an hour we were the only two left on the table!

[DanH]

S Works said:

Electrically operated throttle on a Lotus. Er, no thanks I'll stick with a cable.

One less thing to corrode and jam, and they get complete control of the throttle map (rather than having to manufacture a different throttle body if they want variations). Seems like an improvement to me!

I wonder if it prevents left foot braking though?

>> Edited by DanH on Thursday 8th December 16:27

[gooby]

Those pedals are an absolute design classic. There are people with a pedal on thier mantlepiece and frankly, I dont think it is a bad idea. Very clever bloke and I would have baught him a drink!

[Adnic69]

The designer was Julian ??????? and was also involved with the overall design of the lotus

[GTRene]

DanH said:

S Works said: Electrically operated throttle on a Lotus. Er, no thanks I'll stick with a cable. One less thing to corrode and jam, and they get complete control of the throttle map (rather than having to manufacture a different throttle body if they want variations). Seems like an improvement to me! I wonder if it prevents left foot braking though?

There is a changer + software available for the radical that does the throttle blipping automatically on downchanges. Once the drive by wire throttle etc is available, these will come into the race market more and more (and probably get cheaper) The throttle control for the radical is about £600 AFAIK.
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So reading this sounds very promissing for the elise/exige! I like the idea, I have drive by wire too on my beemer and it does fine! I was also sceptic, but with a good product there is not much of a problem...
GTRene