It’s been 30 years to the day since the S1 Lotus Elise first broke cover at the 1995 Frankfurt Motor Show, setting a new benchmark for what a Lotus – and indeed, sports cars as a whole – stood for.
While Lotus itself may not be celebrating that milestone with a shock announcement of a new Elise, and probably never will, given its current financial struggles, another small British company is taking it upon itself to say a big happy birthday to the Elise. Meet the Analogue Automotive VHPK, a 600kg, 250bhp single-seat love letter to the S1.
Although based on the bones of an original S1, it’s clad in carbon fibre bodywork and with a heavily reworked interior with that central single-seater-esque driving position. That’s not the first for an Elise, either, with Sport Elises used for the Autobytel Lotus Championship back in the early ‘00s using a similar layout. Further weight-saving measures include carbon fibre wheels and carbon ceramic brakes.
Power still comes from a K-series engine, but with some fettling to 250bhp for a power-to-weight ratio of 400bhp-per-tonne.
Just 35 examples of the AA VHPK are set for production, albeit with no asking price publicly listed. We suspect the answer, should you decide to ask, will be “Quite a lot”.
A cool thing, no doubt, but does this fall under the remit of those restomods that are maybe going a little too far? Our staff writer, Mike Bartholomew, has already had his say on the genre, and we suspect this will stir some similar emotions next time he’s at his desk.
It is, at least, giving us an excuse to look at how much an S1 Lotus Elise will set you back these days, with a budget of around £20,000 getting you into a decently-kept example. Surely a darn sight cheaper than the VHPK will turn out to be.
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