More support for the Elise S1/S2 conflict. Here is wht AutoWeek had to say about the Elise 111R (the one we get in the US) against, yes, read it again, the Ferrari 360 Modena Challenge Stratdale (sp?)
But there's something about the Lotus's steering. Something about the way it requires so little effort yet says so much, the way it melds precision with purity feels unmatched by any other road car. The latest Elise is reflexive, instinctively correct in its actions. It seems to have no inertia, no blurring of intention. You don't have to read the car, it reads you. You wear it - mentally, physically. Everything it does is beautifully resolved. There's the immediacy of the controls, the sensational ride - so firm yet unerringly supple - the way it feels so light and so closely coupled to the road.
What you get is the perfect conversion of power into motion. Pure, unsullied, sensational. And the plain fact is that the Ferrari isn't that good. It corners harder, but with less communication, less involvment and less fluidity. As the fight nears its end, this isn't a superficial flesh wound, it's a badly broken jaw.
However, there are areas in which the car from Maranello crushes the Hethel upstart so obviously and completely, it's stretching things to call it a contest: styling, presence, ease of ingress, interior ambience, engine size/power/sound/apperence and - harder to define, this, but no less real - an aura that makes your skin prickle as you walk up to it.
But the fact is, remove the straight-line grun from the equation, and the Elise 111R is a more rewarding steer than the Ferrari. Savour the moment. Cars that change your life view don't come along every day.
Unless you're buying a performance car for "styling, presence, ease of ingress, interior ambience" then this is definately a badly broken jaw at Modena.
That's nearing McLaren F1 / Ferrari Enzo territory there hehe.
