Lotus Elise Sport 135 - My First Experiences of an Elise

I remember my first taste of driving a Lotus 20 years ago as vividly as it was yesterday. It was almost overwhelming how intense the driving experience was - in a very good way - and how, afterwards, every other car felt like an oil tanker to drive. It still feels the same 20 years later, the only difference is that it's no longer a surprise.

"The Elise made me realise that I knew very little about driving a car..."

The car I drove that day was a silver 2002 Elise S2, a completely standard car in great condition. Nothing could have prepared me for what the Elise would throw at me. Having already driven a variety of cars over the prior 12 years of having a driving licence, I thought I was pretty well-rounded in my car experience variety. How wrong the Elise was to prove me.

First, the bizarre view out of the car: your eyes are below the door handles of normal saloons and practically at bumper level of most SUVs; you feel REALLY vulnerable at first. Then, the bizarre view inside the car: the chassis is barely disguised from sight, the dashboard is rudimentary, the steering wheel the size of a milk bottle top, and the windscreen curved as aggressively as a Group C racing car's (deliberately so). And the comically tall, spindly gear lever sprouting from the floor. Then you see the works of art that are the pedals, and you realise that everything about this car is deliberate, not an artefact of cost-cutting bean counter interference.

The seats are comfortable but uncompromising and not adjustable (except for moving them backwards and forwards). They seem unsupportive at first, but they actually grab your hips really well so that you never slide anywhere, even under high cornering forces. I was surprised how comfortable the seats were once under way, given how spartan the padding is.

"The experience of driving an Elise is so visceral, so addictive, that I knew I needed to own one - and soon..."

And once under way, you realise that everything you thought you knew about driving a car was suddenly irrelevant. The immediacy of the controls, especially the steering, was shocking; the intensity of the feedback through the seat, steering wheel, gear lever and even the pedals almost overwhelming. The car lurched backwards and forwards every time I modulated the throttle, pressed the brake or changed gear; it shot left and right with the slightest turn of the steering wheel. Think, and the car seems to respond telepathically. It took a good few miles before I managed to recalibrate my inputs to reduce (not eliminate) the bucking of the bronco.

Then you realise that the bucking of the bronco is the least of the adjustments you need to make to your driving. Mid mid-engined, the weight distribution is unlike anything I'd ever driven before, so the car either rotated at apparently the speed of light or it understeered alarmingly. Ham-fisted is how you could describe my pre-Elise driving, basically. 

Getting out of that Elise and I was hooked for life. No road car I had driven before, and nothing I have driven since, comes remotely close to the Elise driving experience. I walked away convinced I had to own an Elise, and convinced that I still had a lot to learn about driving.