Review of the new Lotus Elise 1.6S

Where other manufacturers spend millions on technology to drive down fuel consumption and emissions, Lotus has always done it in the most elegant way possible - with less weight. In restyled third generation guise, with a fast but frugal 1.6-litre engine now the ownership entry-point, their little Elise remains a template for the modern sportscar in its purest form.

When it was launched back in 1996, few realised quite what a landmark sportscar Lotus' Elise would become. Not even Lotus, who thought they might sell two or three thousand before the market moved on to something else. We all should have known better. This was, after all, something very special, light, simple and built just like a single-seater racing car with a glassfibre body and a tough bonded aluminium chassis. Best of all, it was sprinkled with more than a little Lotus magic, with steering, suspension and braking so good that in over fifteen years, they've yet to be improved upon.

That period has already seen two Elise generations come and go, the MK2 model arriving in 2001 thanks to the need for a move from Rover K Series to Toyota variable vale timing power. And that was it - until the 2010 arrival of the third generation car we're looking at here, still Toyota-powered, but now more ecologically so, this entry-level version becoming the first Elise to feature 1.6-litre power. There are pokier versions further up the smartly restyled range if you want them but their bigger engines aren't essential to an experience that still makes other sportscars seem compromised and commercial by comparison.

At just under 900kg, this car isn't quite as light as it used to be but it's still a featherweight compared to most of its rivals and low mass spells fantastic agility, tuned by some of the best chassis engineers in the business. The last nuances of suspension castor, toe, camber and tyre sidewall stiffness have all been agonised over so that you don't have to. The result is that with a mid-mounted engine for perfect balance and some fat rear tyres generating prodigious grip, you quickly feel more and more confident in exploring the car's limits. Especially since the ride is very good, taut enough to be responsive, absorbent enough not to buck you about all over the place at speed on a bumpy country road.

"Britain once taught the world how to build sportscars. It still does.."

Performance depends on quite how much horsepower is being generated. This entry-level 1.6-litre Elise has a little less torque to play with than the 1.8-litre unit it replaced, so you'll be shifting a little more often about the delightfully slick six-speed manual gearbox - no great hardship. In any case, there's variable valve lift as well as variable vale timing to compensate and the result is that this base model's 134bhp power output is pretty much unchanged. In a car as small and light as this, that's enough to get you from standstill to 60mph in just 6.0 seconds on the way to a top speed of 127mph. Above the 1.6, the Elise line returns to its dependency on 1.8-litre power, madras-style in the improved 189bhp 1.8-litre Elise R and vindaloo if you opt for the ballistic supercharged 217bhp SC version.

Today's Elise has a cleaner look than its predecessors, with a smoother nose incorporating daytime running lights in trendy LED strips. The rear bumper gets a redesigned diffuser and there's a restyled engine deck lid necessary to accommodate the Toyota's taller Welsh-constructed 1.6-litre engine. Otherwise, it's as you were, the whole thing constructed around a bonded and extruded aluminum chassis of outstanding rigidity.

That's something that used to be more obvious inside the very basic early Elises but it's a little more concealed by mats and paneling these days, especially if you tick the box for the carpeted Touring Pack that most owners choose. That'll even give you a cupholder likely to dump its contents on your lap the first time you forget yourself and go haring round the nearest roundabout. Even the Touring trim can't disguise the fact however, that this is a very basic cockpit for a £30,000 sportscar, even if it has been very carefully screwed together. Still, this is a racecar-style cockpit, so to some extent, you can forgive it that, though some steering wheel adjustment would be nice. The controls you do get are brilliantly laid out though and the driving position is excellent.

Our least favourite part of this car remains its fiddly canvas roof. When it's up, there are issues with refinement. And taking it down remains a fiddly process that needs both force, time and practice. Overall, we'd be tempted by the optional hardtop instead. Boot capacity is of course necessarily limited and you'll need to make careful use of every inch of the 112-litre space available - perhaps with a set of bespoke luggage - if you're planning to use this car for weekend trips.

From an asking price point of view, there are a couple of ways of looking at this. It's certainly true that, with a starting price for this entry-level 1.6-litre S model getting on for £30,000 if you include the Touring Pack niceties that most will want, an Elise is by no means inexpensive. If ultimate speed wasn't an issue, you could of course argue that a comparably-sized roadster like Mazda's MX-5 could be yours for £12,000 less. Or, if you wanted to match the performance of this Lotus, a BMW Z4 sDrive23i isn't much more. But the truth is that if you like either of those cars, you'll probably hate this one - and vica versa. For a faster 1.8-litre model, prices range up to and over the £35,000 mark, with a £4,000 premium for the 189bhp Elise R and a £7,000 premium for the 217bhp supercharged Elise SC, a car witrh performance to match that of a six-figure supercar.

Whichever Elise you choose, you'll get alloy wheels, central locking, a leather-covered steering wheel and a CD player. Safetywise, there's twin front airbags and ABS. Beyond that though, you'll need to pay extra for a variety of options packs to add at least a few of the features you'd normally expect to find on a £30,000 car. Given the proximity of the engine just behind the cabin, I'd suggest that air conditioning is an essential box to tick, as is extra sound-proofing. Both of these features are included (along with carpets, part-leather trim, a cupholder and an iPod connection) in the Touring Pack that really ought to be standard. Traction control would also be nice to have but we can't for the life of us see why anyone would want cruise control, a fresh addition to the options list.

When you combine the Elise's light weight with the virtues of this entry-level version's 1.6-litre Toyota engine, one of the most efficient in modern production, the result is the lowest-emitting and most fuel-efficient petrol-powered sportscar currently on sale. CO2 figures for this unit are down 16% - or 30g/km - over the previous 1.8 to 149g/km, while Lotus claims that 45mpg is possible on the combined cycle and that over 500 miles is possible from one fill of the 40-litre tank. Drive like that of course and you'd negate the point of buying this car in the first place but it's still nice to know that even driven with enthusiasm, over 40mpg should still be possible on a regular basis. Opt for one of the faster 1.8-litre models and you'll return around 10 fewer miles for every gallon and find emissions to be up around the 200g/km mark.

What else? Reliability? Well, if you can't rely on a Toyota-built engine, you can't rely on anything in the automotive world. The rest of the mechanicals have also been proven to last and the plastic composite bodywork is tougher than Roman Abramovic's tax return. This is, after all, a car that's been built to take sustained abuse on the racetrack. Insurance is a top-of-the-shop group 20 but residual values are buoyant, with the market for pre-owned Elise models thriving. That'll make staying on the Lotus ownership ladder a lot easier than getting there in the first place. A longer 3 year / 36,000 mile warranty is also a welcome improvement.

Anyone can create a supercar with a huge engine and an inflated price. All Lotus need is modest 1.6-litre petrol power and a simple aluminum chassis. Even in its humblest form, their Elise is as magical as ever. On a twisting track or a curving country road, there's nothing else faster. There are drawbacks of course. It still isn't an everyday sportscar in the way that more compromised rivals can be. It could do with being a few thousand pounds less. And the basic trim and fiddly roof won't appeal if you like your creature comforts.

But all of this is to miss the point. An Elise is gloriously, uniquely like nothing else, so in many ways, comparisons are irrelevant. It's light, it's fuel-efficient, it's fast but best of all it's fun in a way that modern cars have largely forgotten how to be. Britain once taught the world how to build sportscars. It still does.