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An unfortunate Elise owner in Ireland has decided to take matters into his own hands. After his car suffered numerous minor attacks by other cars (and one cyclist), he and his brother are going to fix it up themselves. Seems like a smart plan, as they stand to save a lot of money in the process…and, given his luck to date, this will be a good skill to learn to deal with future incidents! Let’s hope this sad story has a happy ending and the car gets back on the road quickly! You can read all about it over at beautifulaccident.com.

Motor Trend has a nice review of the new Lotus track toy, the 2-Eleven. Those lucky Brits are actually able to make their 2-Eleven street-legal, by adding some headlights (no such luck for US buyers though). The car’s based on the Elise, though ads a supercharger to boost engine output to a nice 252hp – and a curb weight of only 1477lbs! Read more here.
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Just a reminder, this weekend is the CLAM ’07 (California Lotus Autocross and Meet) in San Diego, California. Cost varies based on which activities you’d like to partake in. You can read more about this event over at EliseTalk.
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Well, it’s about time! Lotus’ previous US website was horribly outdated; only recently they featured the 2006 Elise, no mention of the 2007 Elise nor of the Exige or Exige S. It’s been revamped and has a much nicer cleaner look to it. Well done, LCU! You can view it here.

A beautiful, modified Elise, owned by EliseTalk member “NRG x Elise” (a.k.a. Daniel Song), appears in the most recent copy of the magazine “Modified Luxury & Exotics“. Great pictures, great article. You can read scans of the magazine article here. Amazingly, Daniel is actually selling this beautiful machine (you can find out more here, as well as see more pictures).

There’s a new player in town in the Elise aftermarket scene, a company in Poland that makes leather shift boots and hand brake boots. Prices are reasonable ($60 for the set, or $40 each) and they offer a larger array of leather and stitching colors. The company, RedlineGoods.com, can be found at that link; installation instructions for the boots can be viewed here (I’m impressed that they actually have model-specific installation instructions!).

Lotus is going to be installing a large array of wind turbines on their property, which could provide up to 100% of their energy requirements! Read on for the full press release.
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Lotus Cars USA is introducing a limited edition version of the Elise, decked out in the color scheme used on its successful Type 72D Formula 1 car (driven by Emerson Fittipaldi). Fifty of them will be available later this year starting at $60,000, and feature gold color accents (pin striping, gold colored wheels, etc). (via Edmunds)
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This 217hp Exige GT3 represents the most race-ready version yet offered by Lotus. The front clamshell is new to help improve aerodynamics, and the supercharged motor gets an uprated fuel pump to help deal with the added power (and an accusump as well). Lotus boss Mike Kimberley said:

“The Exige GT3 concept road car is a fantastic showcase product from our race car performance division, Lotus Sport. The car’s racing background becomes immediately obvious from its aggressive stance, extreme width of rear track and innovative three-dimensional rear wing. The foundation of all Lotus products is phenomenal handling and ride characteristics, but the Exige GT3 takes these into another dimension altogether where supreme road holding and outrageous acceleration come evenly matched with sensational stopping ability.”

You can read more over at Pistonheads. And no, it’s not likely to be imported into the US.

The latest automotive acquisition rumor is that Spyker may be buying Lotus, as reported in Jalopnik:

Flush with Saudi bux (investor Mubadala Development Company also owns 5% of Ferrari), Spyker appears to be going after the lost, lonely Lotus, which has been struggling under the stewardship of Malaysia’s Proton. Rumors, unconfirmed by the company and denied by Spyker CEO Victor Muller, had indicated the deal was far along, with Lotus slated to assume production of the new D12 Peking-to-Paris SUV in the UK. Nonetheless, according to Autoblog.nl Dutch TV reports Muller did confirm conversations between the two companies have been taking place, but didn’t give up any specifics. Imagine a Spyker C12 that cornered as well as an Elise, and you just know some manner of amusement could be ahead. – Mike Spinelli

This would be an interesting merger, as Spkyer has an F1 team for 2007…could this herald the return of Lotus to F1?