Guide: Lotus Elise S1 Sprint
Background
Once Elise production was underway, Lotus started to develop a potential road-legal racing variant dubbed the Sprint.
There was clearly some demand for a faster Elise, but the Sprint was more than that. Pared back to the absolute bare bones, it was an extreme interpretation of the theme with fully adjustable suspension and a tricked out engine that developed an additional 40bhp over standard.
Lotus presented the Sprint at the Birmingham Motor Show in October 1996. This was four months after the first Elise customers had taken delivery of their cars.
Lotus planned to make the Sprint available from mid 1997.
It was named in honour of the Elan Sprint built during the early 1970s - the last incarnation of the original Elan which came with a special big-valve cylinder head.
Bodywork
Undoubtedly most startling was the Elise Sprint’s new look.
Original stylist Julian Thomson was responsible for the attention-grabbing make-over. Most obviously, Thomson ditched the entire windscreen assembly in favour of a Speedster-style Plexiglas wind deflector that wrapped around to almost fully envelop the cockpit. The rear view mirror was mounted on a central pylon in typical sports racing car style.
The front lid, with its enormous radiator cooling vents, was re-profiled to integrate with the new cabin treatment.
Aside from a custom roll over hoop and black-painted headlight cowls, the rest of the Titanium Metallic bodywork was left standard.
Interior
Even though there wasn’t a great deal of easy weight to strip out from the interior, the Lotus engineers managed to save a few kilograms here and there.
A simplified dash assembly wrapped around to integrate neatly with the re-profiled doors.
Aside from some thin black floor matting, the only upholstery was on the super light weight single-piece bucket seats. The seats were fitted with a multitude of individual cushions that provided support in all the key areas.
As per the exterior, the interior body panels were painted Titanium Metallic. Most of the surfaces were left in bare aluminium.
The instrumentation was housed behind a quick-release three-spoke steering wheel in a standard Elise binnacle. It consisted of analogue read outs for road and engine speed with other vital statistics accessed via the Stack digital readout located at the base of the two main dials.
Chassis
Unlike the standard Elise, the Sprint was kitted out with fully adjustable suspension. The car sat appreciably lower; its uprated springs and dampers exacerbated the hunkered down appearance.
The rest of the package was pure Elise. This comprised a state-of-the-art epoxy-bonded aluminium spaceframe with integral steel roll-over hoop. The spaceframe weighed just 68kg, had a wheelbase of 2300mm and was fantastically strong.
Suspension was fully independent: upper and lower wishbones, co-axial coil springs over inverted monotube dampers and Lotus-patented extruded aluminium uprights.
The standard brake system comprised Lanxide aluminium Metal-Matrix 282mm ventilated brake discs with AP Racing calipers at the front and Brembo calipers out back.
Twin-spoke alloy wheels were manufactured for Lotus by AWI; they measured 5.5 × 15-inches at the front and 7 × 16-inches at the rear. Pirelli P Zero tyres were issued.
For now, the standard 40-litre fuel cell located under the rear of the cockpit floor was retained.
Engine / Gearbox
As usual, in the engine bay was Rover’s all-alloy dual overhead camshaft 1.8-litre K-series inline four. As standard, the wet-sump engine had a four valve cylinder head and 10.5:1 compression ratio.
Displacement was 1796cc thanks to a bore and stroke of 80mm and 89.3mm respectively.
Lotus equipped the Sprint engine with uprated camshafts and throttle bodies, a programmable Engine Control Unit and carbonfibre intake box.
Peak output went from 118bhp at 5500rpm to 158bhp at an unpublished rpm.
Transmission was through a regular five-speed transaxle gearbox and single-plate clutch.
Options
Lotus planned to offer the Sprint with a choice of optional upgrades to include a close-ratio gearbox, racing exhaust system, FIA-approved roll cage, four-point harness, competition springs and dampers, an adjustable anti-roll bar and full Stack instrumentation to include a data logger.
Weight / Performance
Lotus claimed the Sprint weighed just 650kg – some 105kg less than a standard Elise road car of the period.
Top speed was likely in the 150mph range. The 0-62mph time was probably less than five seconds.
Cancellation
Unfortunately, the plans for a limited production run never came to fruition.
However, while the idea for a customer racing car may have been temporarily shelved, Lotus would successfully revisit the concept with an array of cars built for teams, privateers and one-make racers over the next few years.
Thus, the prototype Elise Sprint (built on chassis 16, originally a left-hand drive training car for the new Elise assembly line) remained a one-off.
The solitary car was retired to the factory and sold to a private collector in 1998.
Text copyright: Supercar Nostalgia
Photo copyright: Supercar Nostalgia & Lotus - https://www.lotuscars.com
