Elisa Artioli had the Lotus Elise named after her
Lotus management has just released this news “Yesterday, we were delighted to welcome Elisa Artioli to Hethel to hand over her new car, she was the granddaughter of Lotus’ then Chairman, Romano Artioli, Elisa was the original inspiration for the car’s name”. This is the last Elise built for a customer. The cars in question is a Lotus Sport 240 in “Championship Gold”.
in 1996, Romano Artioli was the chairman of Lotus Cars. When it came time to finalize a name for the two-seat sports car, Romano looked to his granddaughter, Elisa, for inspiration and so the Lotus Elise was ‘born’.
Meanwhile, the interior of this Elise features black Alcantara upholstery with gold stitching and accents. This is an Elise Sport 240 and it is painted in Championship Gold. This Sport 240 comes equipped with a 1.8-liter supercharged four-cylinder engine that delivers an impressive 240 horsepower and 245Nm of torque.
Weighing only 2,033 pounds, it is capable of accelerating from standstill to 100km/h in just 4.1-second and has a top speed of 235km/h.
In addition to her new car, Elisa also owns a Series 1 Elise that was gifted to her by her grandfather in 1997, over a decade before she was even old enough to drive it. Elisa has documented her Elise on her Instagram page and YouTube channel, which also features some great interviews with her grandparents.
While the Elise may be no longer, Lotus’ replacement, the Emira, is set to arrive in Malaysia in limited numbers in the middle of this year. Early in 2021, Lotus announced the end of production for the Elise, Exige and Evora, all sports cars launched during Proton’s ownership of the company. The Elise is built around the Lotus ‘small car platform’.
On the same platform, and also manufactured by Lotus at Hethel were the Opel Speedster / Vauxhall VX220 (7,200 cars built between 2000 and 2005) and the Tesla Roadster (2,515 cars built between 2007 and 2012).
Therefore, including the Lotus 340R, Europa, 2-Eleven and 3-Eleven cars, this brings the total Lotus small car platform production volumes to 56,618 cars.
The Emira will be Lotus’ last internal combustion sports car, being offered with either a supercharged V6 engine or a turbocharged inline-4 cylinder. Pronounced ‘E-meer-a’, the word features in numerous ancient languages and often translates as ‘commander’ or ‘leader’. It’s highly appropriate as this is the exciting new sports car leading Lotus on a journey to a thrilling new future.
