Hardly Ideal but Just About Perfect I'd
thought I'd driven a true purists' sports car before, having
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Now there's a brand logo we haven't seen here in quite some time... (Photo: Trevor Hofmann, Canadian Auto Press) |
piloted
everything from Mazda's pesky little MX-5 Miata to Ferrari's superbly
crafted F430, and most everything in between on the street and around
race tracks, but while each has been wonderful in its own way, nothing
could have prepared me for the ultra-light Elise.
In North
America, anyway, nothing as inherently visceral exists. No car connects
as intuitively to its driver, or relates as much information about what
it is doing and what it's about to do. Certainly Mazda's little
roadster is minimalist compared to an everyday midsize family hauler,
and Porsche's Boxster is about as much fun as any open-top luxury
sportster can get, but believe me when I tell you that even the agile
Porsche feels like it's wearing lead boots when put side-by-side with
the Elise.
It
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You can't see it, but all seven Elises are actually anchored to the ground to prevent them from being blown away by the wind. (Photo: Trevor Hofmann, Canadian Auto Press) |
only makes sense, after all, what with a Boxster
weighing in some 400 to 700 kilos (900 to 1,500 lbs) greater, depending
on trim level, its suspension is more taxed and engine needs to put out
a lot more power to achieve the same levels of performance. The Elise,
on the other hand, weighs only 900 kilos (1,984 pounds) in base trim,
which in perspective is only 140 kg (309 lbs) more than the smallest
car currently being sold in Canada, the smart fortwo, and 245 kilograms
(540 pounds) less than a base Mini Cooper, the smallest car available
in Canada before the smart came along. Then factor in that the Elise
comes equipped with an engine more powerful than even the top-line Mini
Cooper S, by 22 horsepower no less, and it's easy to understand why a
car with only 190-horsepower feels like a Ferrari at takeoff.
Few
cars can manage a sub-5-second sprint to 100 km/h (4.9s to
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Toyota engine provides robustness, and plenty of thrust for tiny Elise. (Photo: Trevor Hofmann, Canadian Auto Press) |
be exact),
much thanks to its thorough use of aluminum, blatantly exposed inside
the cabin, and rigid composite body panels - even the exterior paint
has been scrutinized to make sure its not adding excessive weight.
Actually, I've never been around a team of engineers so obsessed with
weight reduction (no doubt we journalists should be so concerned). Need
to know the weight of the right front fender, each individual seat, the
gas cap... they can tell you. Fortunately their somewhat disturbing
preoccupation has resulted in a car that can transform Toyota's peaky
little 1.8-litre four, with a rather thin torque curve maximized at
6,800 rpm to 138 lb-ft, into a blistering performer.
To
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Not only does it shift the Elise, the high-revving engine creates a rather joyous sound. (Photo: Trevor Hofmann, Canadian Auto Press) |
be
fair, this 190-horsepower mill, that features a Lotus engineered engine
management system, is a fabulous little beast. At around 6,200 rpm it
wakes up as if juiced by a hidden can of nitrous, forward momentum
persisting as it whips into a frenzied 7,800 rpm maelstrom to deliver
peak power. I kept it up over 6K most of the day, the power instantly
on tap and mellifluous whine zapping the synapses to my brain, a
barrage of nervous impulses force fed from one neuron to another, with
what seemed like constant electric stimuli - OK, I spent much of my
early adulthood strapped to Japanese sport bikes, so the sound of a
high-spirited small displacement engine is beyond intoxicating to me.