History of the Elise.

[wattid]

Hello all. I've been watching from afar your eager anticipation of the arrival of the Elise for some time now and can sympathise. I ordered my new Cobalt Blue S2 in November 2001 for delivery in March 2002 - the wait was primarily for financial reasons and that I didn't want to learn about the car through our rather wet, icy and snowy winter. I could hardly wait 5 months - you guys must be going nuts waiting on delivery. It's worth waiting on.

Anyway I thought I'd mention that there's a fantastic fly-on-the-wall documentary video produced by Discovery Channel that follows the Lotus engineers and designers through the early project meetings for Project M111, and sits in on the very early discussions of what form the car will take. You see the project team mulling over such questions as - should it be a step in car, must we have doors, how can we loose more weight - Lotus at it's best. Fascinating for those with an interest in engineering, just as fascinating as those without. A great insight to what made the car the classic it is.

The video is titled "Elise: The Inside Story" and I believe it's now available in NTSC format. Google should help you find a source. Well worth getting a look at.

Regards,
Iain Watt,
Glasgow,
Scotland.

p.s. I'm off to Stelvio in the Italian Alps in a few weeks thanks to the efforts of Tony and Jane Churly who've been organising this run for about six years now if I remember correctly - see the website here http://www.stelvio.org.uk/. The original test mule of the Elise was taken here for extensive brake system testing - this is shown in the video! Tony's run has us all meeting at the Restaurant at the top of the Stelvio Pass for Lunch on the anniversary of the launch of the Elise at the Frankfurt Motor Show in 1995. Now I can't wait for this - it can't come soon enough.

[wattid]

A wee update for anyone who's interested. I found this photo of the original Engineering and Production teams responsible for bringing the Elise to the world way back in '94-'96.

http://www.sandsmuseum.com/cars/elis...ing/elise1.jpg

Pictured bottom left with his finger tips resting on the front wing is Tony Shute, Project Manager in charge of the overall project.

Bottom right, sporting a rather fetching beard and red tie is Richard Hill, the Aerodynamicist, fittingly standing behind the lip/spoiler on the rear of the original car for which he was largely responsible. He warned that the car was developing too much lift at the rear and pushed hard for the spoiler to be added. The design team wanted no spoiler and the original car's rounded rear bore similarilty to the later Audi TT which didn't feature a spoiler - a feature Audi were to hurriedly add as an afterthought.

Centre rear with a slightly yellow shirt is Richard Rackham the man responsible for the legendary bonded Aluminium (sorry Aluminum!) chassis. He seems quite a character.

Hiding on the right with his face partially obscured but his signature moustache on display is Dave Minter, Ride and Handling engineer. His colleague Matthew Becker is in the front row wearing a black t-shirt. I've never had this confirmed, but I've always assumed that this is the son of Roger Becker, a Lotus long-timer and part of the team who brought the car to you guys in the US.

A small highly focussed team of guys who we have to thank for giving us this great car.

Regards,
Iain Watt,
Glasgow,
Scotland.