EliseInfo.com

Lotus Engineering has re-engineered a supercharged Exige S to run on ethanol derived from wheat. The result is a 265hp rocket that can do the 0-60 sprint in 3.88 seconds and is, according to Lotus, the world’s fastest street legal ethanol powered car. No word of whether this will reach production, but it’s likely this was more of an engineering exercise and way to attract more engine development work to Lotus Engineering and thus production in the short term is unlikely. (Via Car Magazine and EliseTalk) See the rest of this post for more pictures…
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I’ve finally started shipping the radar detector mounting bracket I’d been working on! I designed it to fit to the Elise or Exige without requiring any holes to be drilled, or without any other modification necessary so it’s easy to revert back to stock if desired. I’ve posted information about it over at EliseTalk. I’ll get some pictures up here soon.

In general, my philosophy was to design something that was nicely built and well thought-out. The detector placement has been optimized for the best forward visibility, though this does mean that rear laser detection may be somewhat hindered (though personally, I believe that any rear laser source is a threat you should have already noticed, as laser speed detection cannot be used while the police car is in motion).

It’s pretty much official now, that the next Lotus supercar will carry the ‘Esprit’ name (as Pistonheads reports here). There had been speculation for a while, with Lotus referring to it as the ’supercar’, purposefully avoiding calling it an Esprit. I’m not sure how much to make of this recent slipup, it’s possible it was more of a habitual name calling than actual fact, but hey, news in Lotus land is sparse these days I guess.