Carmudi Monthly 013 | Page 21

Lotus Elise Cup 260 Celebrates the Company’s 70 Year Heritage

If you’ve been following the news, you might have heard that the British based sports car manufacturer Lotus Cars, was recently acquired by the Chinese automobile giant Geely, who also happens to be the current owner of Volvo. Nevertheless, reports have surfaced that Geely has big plans for its newly acquired British brand, and the company is working hard to bring new variants of Lotus’s highly acclaimed sports cars to the wider market.

As a result, the latest addition to the Lotus line-up is the Elise Cup 260, a nifty little sports car that’s based on the company’s racecar-derived Elise. According to the company, the Elise Cup 260 is a combination of everything great about the Lotus brand and is arguably the best Elise ever.

Created to celebrate the founding of Lotus Cars by Colin Chapman nearly 70 years ago, the new Elise Cup 260 comes with a 250-hp, supercharged 1.8-liter four-cylinder engine, which is capable of accelerating this car from zero to 100km/h in just 3.8 seconds. In fact, the engine of this small beast is boosted by a cleverly designed six-speed manual transmission, which has closer shift ratios, giving the Lotus Elise Cup 260 a top speed that exceeds 240 km/h on the highway.

While Lotus did not mention pricing, expect it to be on the premium side.

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