BOLD RIDE
In 1996, Lotus car designer Julian Thomson put the finishing touches on the original Elise Series 1. To this day, it remains an absolute head-turner, but as it turns out, Thomson – now Jaguar’s Director of Advanced Design – isn’t done with the iconic shape yet.
Visually, the entire car gets a substantial redesign. The carbon fiber-bodied Super Elise sits just over one inch lower than its predecessor, and puffs out between three and four inches wider, now sporting a dramatically reworked fascia and rear end for optimum cooling and downforce. Peek in the rear and you won’t find a Rover K-series or Toyota four-cylinder engine, but rather a Honda VTEC powerplant connected to a sequential gearbox.
“Whenever I washed my own Elise, I was reminded of things that didn’t turn out quite as I’d have liked and I always wanted to put them right,” noted Thomson.Since his days at Lotus, Thomson has gone on to contribute to some quite extraordinary automotive shapes, including the Range Rover Evoque, Jaguar C-X75 supercar and even the stunning 1989 Isuzu 4200R concept.
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