I went to a car meet in West Hollywood last weekend that had everything from a Pagani Zonda and Bugatti Veyron to an Audi RS2 and a real Jaguar D-Type, with stuff like two G-wagen cabrios and a Porsche 993 GT2 race car present as well. But one of the rarest things that showed up was this 2011 Lotus Elise, a car you might not know even existed.
OK, I’m sure you know the Lotus Elise as a whole existed, but did you know that for the 2011 model year Lotus actually sold a handful of Series 3 Elise facelifts in the U.S.? The rest of the world got the Series 3 models for a decade following 2011, but Lotus’ PR department confirmed to me that only 128 of these facelifted Elises were officially brought to the U.S. before the model was taken off the market, just six years after the Elise first launched in 2005. I think this is the only Series 3 Elise I’ve ever seen in America.
Out of those 128 Series 3 Elises, 77 of them were the naturally aspirated Elise R, while the other 51 cars were supercharged SC models like the one I saw. (There were three different special edition SCs that count towards that total: Two Type 25s, two RGB Editions and 12 Final Editions.) The main upgrade for the Series 3 Elise was the new front end with triangular headlights and a more streamlined bumper design, which I think looks really good, plus a different rear diffuser and engine cover.
So, why was this final model year Elise so stunted? Pesky American regulations. Lotus had received a waiver to be able to sell cars in the U.S. without smart airbags, but that waiver expired in August 2011. Toyota also stopped making the 2ZZ-GE engine that powered the U.S.-spec Elise, and the smaller 1.6-liter engine that European models got would be tough and expensive to certify. If that wasn’t bad enough, the Elise also didn’t meet new stability control regulations, and other posts online say it didn’t pass 5-mph bumper requirements, either.
In a city full of some of the rarest, most spectacular cars ever made, this little Toyota-powered British sports car flies under the radar for all but the nerdiest among us. It’s four times rarer than the Veyron, ten times rarer than the Ferrari F40, nearly as rare as the McLaren F1. Next time you spot an Elise, take a second look to see if it’s one of these Series 3 cars.
