theob said:
I just cannot understand why you try to compare apples to oranges.
Elise is a Lotus, where the Corvette is just another powerful car, which will sell in tens of thousands.
The Z06 will be another hot rod, but I believe that all these cars don't make you feel the aura that handbuilt cars like Lotus can give...
Hope you see my drift...
Agree with you 100%. Why we keep hearing attempts to compare the Vette with the elise I can't understand. So different cars, both great in their own way.
I know we all have probably read the Aug Road and Track, but I think it warrents repeating their nice intro to the Elise review:
"Once upon a time, not so long ago, sports cars were about simplicity, balance and light weight. Horsepower was certainly welcome, though not necessarily essential, as handling and agility were at least as important as outright speed. Throughout the '50s and '60s, featherweights like the Porsche 550 Spyder and Lotus Seven exemplified this "handling over horsepower" approach to going fast, driving circles around scores of heavier, more powerful competitors.
Fast-forward to 2004 and the sports-car landscape has changed significantly. The machinery is undeniably faster and more powerful, but with these improvements have also come corresponding increases in size, complexity and most important, weight. Festooned with a dizzying array of creature comforts and high-tech wizardry, the modern sports car has packed on a few pounds over the past 40-plus years.
To compensate for this increased bulk, most of today's contenders possess increasingly potent powerplants (usually 300-500 bhp) to keep their 3000-plus-lb. bodies briskly in motion. The added thrust no doubt helps them get down the road quickly, but there's also no getting around the effects such mass has on a car's agility. Simply put, a 3000-lb. vehicle accelerates, brakes and corners very differently than one weighing 2000.
Which brings us to the Lotus Elise. Tipping the scales at a gravity-defying 1950 lb., the diminutive Elise remains faithful to the Hethel company's less-is-more school of vehicle production. Like the famous Seven and Elan, lightweight roadsters that helped put Lotus road cars on the map, the Elise is built around the same concept of joining an exceptionally light, nimble chassis to a flexible and responsive 4-cylinder engine. With so little mass to haul around, the Elise doesn't need a ton of horsepower to go fast, huge brakes to slow down or massive wheels and tires to handle well."