2005 Lotus Elise

Like Enzo Ferrari, Lotus founder Colin Chapman started building road cars primarily as a means of feeding a racing habit, and for many years, Lotus was one of Ferrari's chief rivals on the racetrack. Although gone from racing's top echelon for many years—2010 marks Lotus's reentry after a 16-year absence from Formula 1.

For consignment, a mid engine light weight aluminum tubbed glued together to a frame car weighing in at a mere 1500 pounds, we have a racing inspired car in our midst.  With its emission compliant engine provided by Toyota in 1.8 liter form and this mid mounted mill that produces 190hp.  With only 24,655 actual miles clocked, leather interior and very sporty CanAm series lines, lets go turn some heads.

Exterior
Speaking of turning heads, now this racer is bathed in Orange Chrome Metallic and it shines like a crazy mango diamond.  Curvaceous lines abound, from the encased front head lighting, rounded integrated bumper with its elongated oval grille all in black, hood intake venting also in black and curving all with the other lines.  Not unlike the DP cars of today, a nicely rounded windscreen framed also in black, was ahead of its time.  Doors allow easy access to the passenger compartment which can be opened to the fresh air by the removal of the top panels.  The doors are supporting a massive inset curved cove for air cooling of the mid engine.  Above the rear glass starts with what is essentially a roll bar with a piece of vertical glass floating just before more rear deck black vent openings and curved flying buttresses from the roll bar to the rear deck.  The rear of the car is curved and vertical supporting round tail lighting, Elise badge and black lower roll pan pre rear splitter.  It's a bit stubby in its design for the rear of the sports car but remains to the proportion for the car.  We can roll on 16-inch front and 17-inch black 8 spoke mag wheels wrapped in all weather F-1 style intermediate tread 195/50RZ16 rubber in front, and larger 225/45ZR17's on back from 2017.

Interior
As we pass through the curvaceous doors which sport curvy panels in black leather for the inserts undulating around the door actuator, we will need to step over a wide sill to gain access to the cockpit.  Here we seat ourselves into high back thin sleek leather covered buckets in black.  They have some gray edging on the bolsters which are small by today's standards, but still sexy in their design.  As I reach for the  small racing style steering wheel, I can peer into the dual circular white faced instruments and digital readout odometer.  This is within a hooded curved padded dash top and it stretches across the entire dash top.  Round eyeball air vents are futuristic and apropos in their nature to the inside of this sports car.    An Alpine AM/FM/CD/XM radio is just below two of the eyeball vents on the dash top.  Below this are some billet styled climate control knobs.  The interior also uses an interesting mix of black rubber flooring  and aluminum drilled pieces as weight saving accenting for the toe kick areas and seat mounting to the floors.  This faux satin finished plastic/metal look also shows up on the center console where the shifter is located, as well as the handbrake.  This whole motif gives somewhat of an industrial feeling to the interior.  White stitching in the seats also adds to the mystique.

Drivetrain
A flip of the vented trunk lid and we have access to the tight mid engine bay where a LOTUS badged, (actually Toyota in reality), 1.8 liter 2ZZ-GE engine resides.  It has EFI and a mated Toyota C64 6-speed manual transmission that drives the rear axle with 4.53 ratio.  Original OEM dual exhaust provide the exhale.  All is nice and clean for this midsection power plant area.

Undercarriage
Independent coil springs on all 4 corners provide the handling and ride and disc braking is also on all 4 corners.  There are plenty of aluminum and black plastic covers under here and these are all road dirt free which is amazing considering how prevalent this stuff is under here!  I can also note some scratching in the bodywork underneath within the metallic orange paint on several sections of the bottom end.

Drive-Ability
The car fired right up and after a panic stop test out was off to the races.  Albeit whilst the car alarm was constantly going off.  It handled nicely, and all functions were working at the time of my test drive.  The removable panels allow plenty of fresh air to enter the cockpit and gave me a nice view of the blue sky above which is always prevalent at a place like Classic Auto Mall!

Not your typical find with this Lotus Elise, curvaceous racing inspired design, mid engine road car meant for some fun and performance to boot.  G'day mate.

SCCPC11195HL34909

S-United Kingdom
C-Lotus
C-Passenger Car
P-2ZZNA
C-Manual Belts, Front Airbags
111-Elise
9-Check Digit
5-2005
H-Hethel Assy Plant
L-LHD Federal Emissions, AC
3-Elise
4909-Sequential Unit Number

Classic Auto Mall is a 336,000-square foot classic and special interest automobile showroom, featuring over 850 vehicles for sale with showroom space for up to 1,000 vehicles. Also, a 400 vehicle barn find collection is on display. This vehicle is located in our showroom in Morgantown, Pennsylvania, conveniently located just 1-hour west of Philadelphia on the I-76 Pennsylvania Turnpike. The website is www.classicautomall.com and our phone number is (888) 227-0914. Please contact us anytime for more information or to come see the vehicle in person.