The Lotus Cars Community banner
  • Hi there! Why not register as a user to enjoy all of the benefits of the site? You may register here. When you register, please pick a username that is non-commercial. If you use a name that appears on any search engine commercially, you must pick another name, whether it applies to you or not. Commercial usernames are for supporting vendor use only. If you want to become a supporting vendor and grow your business, please follow this link. Thanks!

Favorite Elise Quotes

6K views 23 replies 17 participants last post by  Randy Chase 
#1 ·
Please add your noted or favorite quote about the Elise.
 
#2 ·
Neal, LA Times 4-2004

It is, rather, the most comfortable race car I've ever driven. ....the Elise is so communicative, so instantly availble to the driver, so neuronal in feedback it's like plugging in "Matrix"-style to the road....In a way, it's like synesthesia, the LSD phenomenon in which senses merge, so you can smell sounds and hear colors. In the Elise, the physics of performance driving - weight transfer, coefficients of friction under the tires, roll centers and moments, the stuff of endless chalk talk at driving schools - are all so vivid and obvious. This is how a car is supposed to work.
 
#3 ·
Road and Track 11-2003

The next great sports car in America
The bottom line is that the new Elise is arguably the most exciting sports car in the world to drive. It's a must-have for any enthusiast and will out perform anything in its segment.
 
#5 ·
"The purest sports car on the planet... The bottom line is that the new Elise is arguably the most exciting sports car in the world to drive. It's a must have for any enthusiast and will outperform anything in its segment... As for the car's handling, what is there left to say about the Elise that hasn't already been mentioned. It has garnered more than 30 awards from virtually every enthusiast publication and organization in Europe... Arguably the most enjoyable car on the planet to drive... The Elise also embraces the heritage of one the most celebrated marques in racing history." Road&Track Nov. '03

"one of the best handling cars in the universe." - Top Gear

"...the nearest thing to a modern race car you can drive on the road... Not much this side of an exotic supercar will keep up with it on a racetrack... For pure sports-car thrills, it's in the top five most-entertaining cars available.' Car&Driver Dec."03

"The Elise is no poseur: It’s a genuine, fast, agile, light sports car." - MotorTrend Dec. '03

"A stark contrast to the roadsters compared in the August issue, the Lotus lacks some of the luxuries that the mid-life crisis crowd has come to expect; nothing is power assisted or operated in the Elise, it's hard to get in and out of, and you'll have to explain to everyone why you bought it. The Elise's competition does not require these sacrifices, but as every automotive anglophile knows, it is these sacrifices that separate those in the know from those who merely pose." - Automobile Magazine

"There’s a purity about its diving experience that even the seminal Porsche cannot match, and this, coupled with style, exclusivity and the enduring kudos of the Lotus badge, should ensure its long-term appeal. The Federal Elise has been a long time coming, but it’s been worth the wait. This is a genuine Lotus and a fabulous sports car."- European Car Jan. '04

"The Lotus Elise proves that less weight is more performance... This inspirational roadster is blessed with the magic that makes a good driver feel like a champion. " - Automobile Magazine, Jan. '04

"In its price range, it is still the nearest thing to a race car that you can drive on the road and not much this side of an exotic supercar can match it on the track." - Phil Bailey's Auto World

"This is quite simply, the best Elise - and probably the best Lotus - ever." - Nik Berg, Top Gear

"But there's something about the Lotus's steering. Something about the way it requires so little effort yet says so much, the way it melds precision with purity feels unmatched by any other road car. The latest Elise is reflexive, instinctively correct in its actions. It seems to have no inertia, no blurring of intention. You don't have to read the car, it reads you. You wear it - mentally, physically. Everything it does is beautifully resolved. There's the immediacy of the controls, the sensational ride - so firm yet unerringly supple - the way it feels so light and so closely coupled to the road.
What you get is the perfect conversion of power into motion. Pure, unsullied, sensational. And the plain fact is that the Ferrari isn't that good. It corners harder, but with less communication, less involvment and less fluidity. As the fight nears its end, this isn't a superficial flesh wound, it's a badly broken jaw.
However, there are areas in which the car from Maranello crushes the Hethel upstart so obviously and completely, it's stretching things to call it a contest: styling, presence, ease of ingress, interior ambience, engine size/power/sound/apperence and - harder to define, this, but no less real - an aura that makes your skin prickle as you walk up to it.
But the fact is, remove the straight-line grun from the equation, and the Elise 111R is a more rewarding steer than the Ferrari. Savour the moment. Cars that change your life view don't come along every day." - AutoCar Magazine, March 2004 on Elise 111R vs. Ferrari 360 Modena CS
 
#7 ·
This is the best Elise quote ever, no question about it!

Stephen Sutcliffe, Editor at Autocar. First drive of the Elise back in 1996.

"By the time I'd parked it that night, a good 300 miles later, I was convinced that I'd driven the future. The sports car had been redefined there and then. I felt a shivery sense of privilege to be one of the first people outside the factory to have sampled this new reference point in the history of the car."
 
#8 ·
I think I saw this in someone's profile on seloc, dunno who to credit it to:

Lotus Elise: a real sports car. A pure sport car. A featherweight with no unnecessary driver aids that take away from the driving experience. No dynamic stability management. No active yaw control. No electronic brake distribution. No traction control. No throttle by wire. No all wheel drive. No sequential paddle shifters. No power steering. No power mirrors. No heated 8-way power seats. Little in the way of sound deadening materials. No cruise control. No cup holders. Sure, it's small, loud and impractical. If you want quiet, buy a BMW. If you need to haul a lot of stuff, get a van. If you need to stretch out, rent a limo. But if you want to go fast, seriously fast, sit down, strap in, shut up and hang on.
 
#9 ·
This is one I use with my truck. (Mercedes Benz Unimog)
When someone is asking about it and I don't have time to chat.

"Oh, uh this is my wife's truck and I realy don't know that much about it"


I plan on using this line when I get my elise. In Orange, with matt black wheels?

JC
 
#10 ·
gmoneyjive said:
I think I saw this in someone's profile on seloc, dunno who to credit it to:

Lotus Elise: a real sports car. A pure sport car. A featherweight with no unnecessary driver aids that take away from the driving experience. No dynamic stability management. No active yaw control. No electronic brake distribution. No traction control. No throttle by wire. No all wheel drive. No sequential paddle shifters. No power steering. No power mirrors. No heated 8-way power seats. Little in the way of sound deadening materials. No cruise control. No cup holders. Sure, it's small, loud and impractical. If you want quiet, buy a BMW. If you need to haul a lot of stuff, get a van. If you need to stretch out, rent a limo. But if you want to go fast, seriously fast, sit down, strap in, shut up and hang on.
That one's mine. I made that up a few months ago and used it in my signiature until I got bored with it. It's been slightly modified above.
 
#13 ·
Dan Neil, LA Times:
[T]he Elise is without question one of the purest sports cars money can buy - a tiny, mid-engine rat racer, as bare as a Trappist's closet, an amphetamine on four wheels whose sensations are more akin to Japanese bullet-bikes than Porsches, Vipers and Corvettes.
[drool]Mmmm, 4-wheeled amphetamine . . .[/drool]
 
#15 ·
From one of the Lotus USA guys at the LA auto show, after being asked one more time about 0-60 time.

"I just don't get the obsession with 0-60. I could take this car through the mountains against all the other cars in this room (The exotics room) and every hour stop and smoke a cigarette while waiting for them to catch up"


Sorry I don't recall who said that.



One of my favorite Lotus quotes was about the Europa which only had a 0-60 time of 7.7. the quote....

"well it may not get moving real fast, but it doesn't have to slow down for the corner, ANY corner"
 
#16 ·
By Tom Ford in April 03 CAR re the 111R:

"Within 50 yards of setting off in the 111R you'll realize the Lotus Elise is back in your mental top ten of cars for twisty, sunny drives-for-no-reason. After any journey where you manage to cobble together enough wobbly roads, you'll emerge loving it and what it stands for. It understeers a bit on super-tight corners, and could do with more torque, but it still causes you to make little punching motions with your fists when you've got it just right. This is why they built it. This is what it's for."
 
#17 ·
Nick Adams Program Manager for Federal Elise

In response to a question about how they maintain the design integrity of the car (from memory)

We know its a Lotus because we drive them [the prototypes]. Everybody drives them. All the officers of the company drive them. Then we decide if we've succeeded.
 
#19 ·
"This car is the Cuban cigar of sports cars: It is one of the world's finest specimens, but can't legally be enjoyed by Americans".

Written by Sam Mitani, Road & Track Sept 1997 page 88.

I guess this won't be true for much longer !! :)
 
#21 ·
"The Elise is not a car. It is an extension of your essence - body and mind - to the ground. It is the energy that binds you to the road, through which man, machine, and nature resolve all conflicts and become one harmonious entity of pure ecstatic blissful transcendence. It is nothing short of an existential experience."

- Me
 
#22 ·
"Elise, a wonderful, blisteringly quick sports car that costs less than $40,000, and is undeniably the finest British sports car ever built by the Malaysian government and powered by a Japanese engine designed by a motorcycle company."
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top