Ok, here is what I know: The car was apparently imported from Venezuela and is owned by a friend of some extremely wealthy South Americans. I don’t know much about the owner but he was staying at the Hampton in Adventura. His host was taking delivery of a brand new McClaren Mercedes SL65 AMG today ($600k car). I don’t think money was a problem for these folks.
Back to the point… The car was fitted with a TRD supercharger. My source said that the supercharger replaced the intake manifold and was apparently smaller than the intake manifold that it replaced. He went on to say that the end result was 265 Bhp and 232 bhp at the wheels. He said the supercharger was a twin-screw root type supercharger and is the same unit that will be offered for the Celica GTS. The car was shipped to Japan where the supercharger was fitted by TRD. In doing so the Lotus warranty was voided, however Toyota said since it was a Toyota engine with a Toyota supercharger fitted by Toyota the engine complete with supercharger would be fully covered by a 3 year 36k mile Toyota warranty. Good news for us. The total cost of the job was a hefty $9,500.
Performance:
The car was reported to be very very fast. My source said a friend of his tested these claims by challenging the Elise in his highly modified WRX STI, his car puts out 400 bhp at the wheels. It turned out to be lacking as the Elise handily destroyed the STI.
Many of you will question this post. I know I did, but my source is a long time Elise fan (His daughter’s middle name is Elise… Yes named after our Liz). I double and triple checked his claim that it was indeed the Toyota powered car. I further checked to make certain this was not the Euro 111R. The fact that it had the airbag steering wheel and US interior left no doubt that it was indeed our car.
I do not know how he got the car so soon, but he did. I guess if you have near unlimited financial resources then special allowances can be made.
Back to the point… The car was fitted with a TRD supercharger. My source said that the supercharger replaced the intake manifold and was apparently smaller than the intake manifold that it replaced. He went on to say that the end result was 265 Bhp and 232 bhp at the wheels. He said the supercharger was a twin-screw root type supercharger and is the same unit that will be offered for the Celica GTS. The car was shipped to Japan where the supercharger was fitted by TRD. In doing so the Lotus warranty was voided, however Toyota said since it was a Toyota engine with a Toyota supercharger fitted by Toyota the engine complete with supercharger would be fully covered by a 3 year 36k mile Toyota warranty. Good news for us. The total cost of the job was a hefty $9,500.
Performance:
The car was reported to be very very fast. My source said a friend of his tested these claims by challenging the Elise in his highly modified WRX STI, his car puts out 400 bhp at the wheels. It turned out to be lacking as the Elise handily destroyed the STI.
Many of you will question this post. I know I did, but my source is a long time Elise fan (His daughter’s middle name is Elise… Yes named after our Liz). I double and triple checked his claim that it was indeed the Toyota powered car. I further checked to make certain this was not the Euro 111R. The fact that it had the airbag steering wheel and US interior left no doubt that it was indeed our car.
I do not know how he got the car so soon, but he did. I guess if you have near unlimited financial resources then special allowances can be made.