Its a street legal racecar!!!

I had been waiting for the Elise to arrive in the US for 6 years now and its been worth the wait... The elise is not just a sports car, it is a race car. When i say "race car" i mean that you can literally drive it to the track and then race it without any modifications. It will beat and/or otherwise outperform just about every other car available until you get into the $100,000+ range and with a typical out the door price of 50K, its a steal.

So far the car has been reliable. The toyota engine/trans should hold up very well. As for the cons, the car is small; the pictures dont do it justice; it is roughly 28 inches smaller than typical sportscars and rides lower. Being a perimeter frame design, you need to step over the sills to enter/exit the vehicle which can be a bit on the difficult side if you are not that flexible. If you're fat, forget it, you probably will not fit into the car and even if you do, it certainly will not be comfortable. Surprisingly, height is not a problem. I am 6 ft tall and i find the interior quite comfortable. Interior storage and trunk space is very small. theres enough room for 2 small bags in the trunk but thats about it. the interior has some storage cubbyholes and a enough room for a small pack behind the seats.

The interior is rather spartan. The US market dictates that sports cars tend to have more luxuries and gadgets. The elise was built as a true racecar and as such, the focus was to keep weight to a bare minimum. The elise has leather trim, A/C, power windows, locks and ABS but it lacks some of the options found on other cars with similar prices; things like traction control, heated seats, and power mirrors. Also, the suspension comes tuned for racing so the ride can get bumpy at times. The result, however is that the car comes in with a curb weight of ~1900 lbs. With 190 HP, that makes for some very impressive stats: 0-60 in 4.4 sec, 12.6 sec 1/4 mile and 1.06 g on the skidpad. If you are looking for the closest thing to driving a real race car on the strees, the elise will not fail to impress. And it turns heads like you wouldnt believe.

If you want an elise, be prepared to do some looking; the entire production for 2005 has been reserved with deposits. Keep an eye out for people who back out though; this car is not for everyone so there have been some unclaimed elises that have found their way to other buyers.