Lotusyota

[turboyaris]

Once upon a time (late 1970s)

you forgot...in a galaxy far far away. I mean come on that makes or breaks the story

[machine1]

The Elise was available with a Honda engine in the states, The B18C5 Type-R, and then later was available with a K-Series mill...

http://www.sportcompactcarweb.com/fe...c_lotus_elise/

In a conversion by Sun International, back in 1999.

[Kaotic Lazagna]

Originally Posted by absenter

That's a good way to live life. I'm tryin to get back down that path. A sober one I mean. I wouldn't change my experiences for the world though. I'm just glad I never did heroin. Can't say so much for everything else.

i don't even know most of the names of drugs out there.

[Kaotic Lazagna]

Originally Posted by machine1

The Elise was available with a Honda engine in the states, The B18C5 Type-R, and then later was available with a K-Series mill...

http://www.sportcompactcarweb.com/fe...c_lotus_elise/

In a conversion by Sun International, back in 1999.

I KNEW I SAW THAT SOMEWHERE! i wasn't smoking anything! thanks for the confirm!

[Razr]

Originally Posted by machine1

The Elise was available with a Honda engine in the states, The B18C5 Type-R, and then later was available with a K-Series mill...

http://www.sportcompactcarweb.com/fe...c_lotus_elise/

In a conversion by Sun International, back in 1999.

Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle! Sacrilage!!

It seems Sun converted (both the LHD and the engine) only a handful of them - I suppose anyone could have done this before the car was officially imported into the 'states though..

I do recall many an American on the Lotus forums complaining that the Elise wasn't available in the USA - from what I remember (I didn't pay much attention because they were readily available where I was ) it was to do with emmissions and/or crash regs - either way there used to be some bureaucratic stumbling block. So I guess Sun saw an ooportunity and took it. I'm guessing the engine swap must have been one of the primary gateways to legalizing the thing as you can get 177HP from the 1.8L K-Series so an engine swap that gains 18 odd HP doesn't otherwise seem very logical.

All days gone by now.. An Elise 111 costs USD$120K here, while back home I paid USD$44K for mine. It's worth every cent of $44K, but no way it's worth $120K.

[WRBlue]

I went from lurker to registered for this post :D

Lotus has a long history of using other parts. Because Colin Chapman started the company as a post-WWII "kit car" company. The first road going Lotus car was a modified Austin Six.
One of the most famous Lotuses, the Seven, begain with an Austin engine - then a variety of Fords, and finally a Ford Kent engine with a spiffy Lotus DOHC head.
This engine was used in the Elan, Europa, and the Esprit until the V8 came out in the mid 90s.
My 69 Europa has a Renault engine and transmission (although modified like the Toyota in the Elise/Exige), triumph Spitfire suspensions parts (spindles, brakes, etc), Jaguar door handles, Jensen tail lights, a MG brake master cylinder, and the list goes on.

Its not a big company, and, since Colin died in 1983, has not been a stable company either.
The big hurdle that kept the Elise out of the US was the Rover engine. Rover/Ford/BMW/who ever owned them at the time never even attempted to get EPA and US DOT approval of the engine and so the engine was illegal for the US. The chassis would have been OK after crash testing, but IIRC engine/emmissions testing is much, much more expensive - for a small company such as Lotus with such a small volume (at the time they were selling a couple hundered Esprits a year), it wasn't financially viable. With a Toyota engine, however, it didn't need to be tested ;)

[Yaris Revenge]

Originally Posted by Kaotic Lazagna

i don't even know most of the names of drugs out there.

Don't feel left out, KL, I don't even know what pot smells like.

~YR