Lotus introduces new supercharged Elise Club Racer

Elise S CR packs more power with less weight in what could be the best version yet.

Things have been a little gloomy over at Lotus this past year or so. Feasibility aside, ousted CEO Dany Bahar's grandiose plans to revitalize the brand's product portfolio came crashing down when the company's new ownership scrapped every one of his ideas, forcing Lotus to get by on its existing lineup. What Lotus needs is a ray of hope, but could that come from a model as old as the Elise?

When the Elise was first introduced 17 years ago, Lotus was still under the leadership of Bugatti impresario Romano Artioli. It's since been reinterpreted twice and its platform used for more spin-offs (wearing various badges) than we can count. But the bottom line is that the Elise is still one of the finest-handling sports cars on the road—even if those roads don't pass through the United States anymore.

At the Goodwood Festival of Speed this weekend, Lotus will introduce what could be the most exciting version of the Elise yet, following the magic recipe of more power and less weight. The new Elise S Club Racer ditches non-essentials like sound-deadening materials, air conditioning, and radio to trim 44 pounds from the curb weight—almost as much as Lotus cut from the existing naturally-aspirated version. But while the Elise CR makes do with the 1.6-liter four and its 134 hp, the Elise S CR gets the supercharged 1.8 with 217 hp. That may not seem like much muscle, but it's a lot of extra power in a package weighing less than 2000 pounds, enabling the stripped-out track toy to hit 60 in just 4.2 seconds and top out at 145 mph.

Buyers will be able to add back in the deleted equipment of their choosing, or go the opposite direction by cutting further weight with optional lightweight breathing apparatuses. But while U.K. buyers can pick up a new supercharged Club Racer for £35,600 (a bit cheaper than the fully loaded model), the Elise/Exige family has been absent from North America for nearly two years now. Here's hoping that, with the development costs of Bahar's new models off the books, Lotus might find the money to develop the new airbags mandated by U.S. federal regulations and bring it back to American dealers. If and when it does, we hope the Elise S Club Racer makes the transatlantic voyage, too.