Bodywork

Elise S2

The doors are little changed form the S1, though they are deeper to accomodate the lower sill (by 40mm). The interior of the door is simpified and the door pull has moved to the top of the door (picture). This is a less elegant but more usable solution, though the execution in black plastic lloks cheap. Expect aftermarket replacement parts for this to appear soon. The door has less exposed paintwork and is less susceptable to scratches from large feet on entry/exit.

The front bonnet on the S1 has been replaced by two separate panels on the S2, each held down with 3 allen-key fixings. These panels are linked into the alarm system and one of them needs to be removed to fill the windscreen washer bottle. The panels existence is down to the designer of the car wanting to carry the bonnet strake over from the S1. To save weight the hinged bonnet was dropped in favour of light-weight fixed panels. These were never intended to be fixed with allen-key bolts. Lotus had identified a supplier of quality, user-friendly fixings but, they went into receivership before production started, leaving few options to hold them down in a secure manner. This is one thing that is likely to be improved later in production so don't despair if you have these on an early S2 car.

The Elise S2 has stainless-steel and aluminium fixings throughout to reduce the problems with corrosion, sometimes found on the S1.

The new gull-wing style hardtop was designed to provide a light-weight, stowable hard roof, offering improved access to the car. A rear cover and central T-bar replaces the rool-bar cover and remains fixed to the car with lift-out panels either side. These panels can also be tilted to improve access to the car, hence the term gull-wing. The production hard-top is yet to be shown to customers but expect a number of third-party alternatives to appear now that the fixing points are designed into the car to support alternative solutions. There is not much information about the S2 hardtop and it is not due to appear until about June/July 2001.

The S1 and S2 Elise share the same Cd of 0.46 with the roof off and 0.43 with the roof on.

Exige

Elise S1

The downside with using GRP and this process to produce such large panels is that a minor accident can prove expensive to fix. GRP is also not a good medium to paint and a softer paint is required than would be found on an equivalent steel panel. The paint finish is easy to scratch and the innevitable stone chips picked up on the leading edge of the bonnet can be costly to repair, requiring removal and respray of the front clamshell. The benefits are obviously lower production costs and little variation in panel sizes and panel gaps. Having said this a lot of the squeaks associated with the car are often down to the clamshell rubbing on another part of the car, e.g the door skin. The rollbar cover and sills are also GRP. The sills are bonded to the chassis and his makes replacement a time consuming and expensive process. Repair and respray is often the cheapest and easiest approach.

The doors are a simple two piece design with GRP panels mounted on the aluminium door bar. Frequent slamming of the doors can cause mis-alignment and you should never lean on the doors to gain access to teh car. Most passengers forget that there is no air resistance to door closure and slam the doors shut, so remind them before the close the door. Early cars had problems with the door retaining plates breaking, resulting in a piece of aluminium falling into the footwell. Later cars can stronger retaining plates fitted.

Hard tops and soft tops have their own page.

The boot on early cars was made of aluminium (which helped with radio reception). This was later replaced with a GRP bootlid to reduce costs. The aluminium bootlid is easily dented by careless owners trying to push it shut too hard. With the arrival of the 111S model the boot lid design was changed on all cars to incorporate a new 'hump'. This was to provide extra space for the VVC mechanism. The boot cable release mechanism on the car is prone to water entry and subsequent corrosion.

The Elise features a flat underside to improve airflow, thanks to a front and rear undertray (the central section is the chassis which already has a flat floor). These aluminium panels are bolted to the underside of the car and easily removed for servicing.

Some of the bodywork fixings used on the Elise are prone to corrosion. A lot of owners have replaced them to resolve this.

Useful Links

Car Care Clips

Paint chip repair guide by Larry Renolds.

Credits