1991 Lotus Elan Exceeds Expectations

From the March 1991 issue of Car and Driver.

Portly traditionalists, many of them far too large to fit in sports cars any longer, will drool that wind—and rain and snow—in the face and rear-drive cars are what motoring is all about. These same would-be Brahmins will spot their ties with port and dust their tweeds with pipe ash as they issue postprandial prolongings of the century-long failure to define, once and for all, the meaning of the words “sports car.”

We admit that we harbored strong prejudices against the new Lotus Elan even before we sat in it. This bias stemmed from having driven, years ago, a Lotus Europa. That diabolical contrap­tion, though fun to twist around corners and to listen to, did in fact have doors that came nowhere near joining its roof. The Europa, once you had fought and wiggled your way into it, rewarded you with living conditions that, had they been dictated by the government, would have caused rioting in the streets.

The new Lotus Elan isn’t like that. Even large persons can get in and out of it with ease, and everything we saw or touched displayed a high level of fit and finish. Any residual belief that the Elan would be another one of those cars that important pieces might fall off of grew dim the minute we touched it.

But to continue our mea culpa, we admit that we were also biased against the Elan’s front-wheel-drive layout. Despite the warbling of the British motoring press, and despite the always-depend­able word of our own man in the mother country, Ray Hutton, we still didn’t be­lieve that a real Lotus ought to be other than rear-wheel-drive. And were we sus­picious of the Elan’s Isuzu engine? We were. Not so much of its quality, you un­derstand, just the idea of an Isuzu engine in a Lotus.

Driving the new Lotus Elan has made believers out of us on those issues. We can now view this newest offering for what it is: a civilized, eminently enjoyable roadster that is a joy to occupy and a joy to drive.

Assuming that you can afford it, of course. Nothing in this world is perfect, and the Lotus Elan price tag is not the ex­ception that proves this rule; the car costs a tick under 40 grand. For about that sum, you could buy a fixed-top Porsche 944S2. Or you could get an L98 Corvette or a Nissan 300ZX Turbo and have enough change to pay your insurance premiums, or . . . oh, you get the point, this is an expensive car.

But let’s put that aside as if we were Merrill Lynch’s target audience and get on with what you get for your money.

“Above all else,” Lotus chief engineer Roger Becker told us, “a Lotus has to handle.” Lotus also considers perfor­mance, he added, to be “part of a total package,” which is to say that all systems should support the car’s efforts to enter­tain you. Becker and his merry men believe, rightly in our opinion, that ride and steering ought to complement each other rather than be independent forces, and that the handling qualities should be usable by what Becker terms “ordinary human beings.” In other words, you need not be a masochist or Ayrton Senna—assuming there’s a difference­—to enjoy the Lotus Elan.

The front-drive, two-seat roadster that is the new Elan looks infinitely better in person than even our photographers can make it look on paper. At an overall length of just under thirteen feet and a wheelbase of 88.6 inches, it gets away with being stubby. When you look at it, it’s difficult not to say to yourself, “This is what a Pontiac Fiero cabrio would have looked like, given a few breaks.”

There’s a purposeful forward slope to the Elan profile, highlighted by a steeply raked windshield, and its rear wheels are so far back that they just miss grinding against the bumper. All this, coupled with a wrinkle-free canvas top, results in a car that will draw the second glance from serious enthusiasts, yet which—despite an undeniably aggressive stance—is in danger of being found guilty of being “cute,” a word that ought not be applied to mechanical objects this costly.

The cuteness begins to fade in favor of capability once you’ve strapped yourself into the comfortably spacious cabin and gotten under way. The first thing you’ll notice is the seat and its surroundings, a handsomely designed, rounded sanctu­ary redolent of well-cured leather. Next you’ll notice the ride and steering. Rath­er than trying to impress you with stiff­ness and dartiness, the Elan feels strik­ingly like a much larger car—a Jaguar XJ-S roadster comes to mind. That’s un­til you bend it into the first tough turn, at which point it feels just the way you think a Lotus should feel: unperturbed under cornering pressure.

The chassis is a steel backbone that bolts rigidly to the body and incorporates the rear-suspension mounting points. A front underframe bolts to this and incor­porates the dual rubber-mounted subframes that support the front suspen­sion. The fully independent suspension uses coil spring and unequal-length control arms and anti-roll bars all around. Not only does the chassis design result in handling that you are certain to enjoy, but it also provides a rigid struc­ture that’s all but without the cowl shake commonly found in roadsters.

The brakes are discs at each wheel, vented at the front, and they stopped the car from 70 mph in 185 feet with fair modulation and no fade. The brake feel through the pedal was without numbness or rubbery effect.

The five-speed transaxle’s shifter com­bines with the clutch action to deliver a seamless, almost effortless flow of thrust. In all transitions, from left to right, from speed to stop, and from stop to all ahead full, the Elan not only rewards smooth­ness, but encourages and abets it. Just as engineer Becker wanted, the Elan can be driven by anyone able to operate a manual-shift car. Better still, it can be en­joyed by those persons.

On the subject of enjoyment, we should mention the top. It’s non-power, but it’s as easy and quick to operate as the Mazda Miata’s or the old Fiat 124’s.

We had worried that the 162-horse­power 1.6-liter engine might be noisy. It turns out not to be, and it turns out to be a decent power unit. The Isuzu engine/transaxle assembly has benefited from what Lotus calls “significant Lotus Engi­neering enhancements,” changes cen­tered on the engine-management system and successful noise-suppression efforts; the engine in the Elan is far quieter than the similar unit in the all-wheel-drive Isuzu Impulse.

The engine is a double-overhead-cam sixteen-valve design with turbocharging, intercooling, distributorless ignition, and electronic multiport fuel injection. It reaches its torque peak of 148 pound­-feet at 4200 rpm and combines with the well-selected gear ratios to provide enough pull at any reasonable point on the power curve.

No discussion of the Elan’s develop­ment should be undertaken without mentioning the tires that Goodyear de­veloped specifically for the U.S. Elan. Designated Eagle GS-Ds, these sixteen­-inch radials were turned out in a mere six months. Guy Kind of Goodyear modestly calls the low-lying tires (they have an as­pect ratio of 45) “very close to perfect.”

That’s the kind of statement you often hear at product introductions, but as it happened at the Elan’s, we had the op­portunity to drive the car 200 miles through the hills of north Georgia in the wet, and we can tell you that the tires are nothing short of excellent.

The Elan’s performance figures are re­spectable for a modern sports car, but no more than that. Our testers recorded a 0-­to-60-mph time of 6.4 seconds and a quarter-mile time of 15.1 seconds at 92 mph. The factory claims a top speed of 137 mph.

Given the association between Gener­al Motors and Lotus, it’s natural to won­der what input GM provided. None, ac­cording to Lotus Cars USA president Ron Foster, who says, “It was an all­ Lotus—and Isuzu—effort.”

One of the Lotus engineers noted that, “Lotus does not enjoy a reputation for faultless cooling.” That this once-sensi­tive subject could be raised in polite company is evidence that Lotus took full ad­vantage of GM’s desert proving grounds during the Elan’s development testing. The use of such facilities apparently rep­resents the sole General Motors contri­bution to the Elan.

A number of changes distinguish the U.S. Elans from their European counter­parts. The changes required to meet emissions and safety standards (the Elan has a driver-side air bag) are obvious dif­ferences, and there’s a missing red stripe on the leather upholstery. But the big­gest change can be found in the suspen­sion, softened a bit for the U.S. and re­tuned to require less driver input and ability than a pure high-performance car might demand. The rear-suspension anti-lift geometry, for example, has been reduced by half to improve the ride bal­ance. The alloy wheels grew from fifteen to sixteen inches. There are also major differences in the bodywork, including a longer nose and a different rear body and wing configuration. Increased cross bracing adds more rigidity.

Lotus Cars USA hopes to sell 1000 new Elans each year, a number that would quadruple its sales volume. Are there 1000 buyers out there with $39,040 who want to spend it on a Lotus Elan? We aren’t sure. A Lotus has traditionally conferred exclusivity on its owner and given that owner certain performance re­wards. The performance rewards given by the new Elan are considerable if not spectacular. Whether it adds enough ex­clusivity to justify its price remains some­thing of a question.

William Jeanes is a former editor-in-chief and publisher of Car and Driver. He and his wife, Susan, a former art director at Car and Driver, are now living in Madison, Mississippi.