Lotus designers use light touch on new look Elise

Colours from the Elise's exterior have been carried over to the interior. Photo / Supplied

Lotus has given its Elise Club Racer a once-over lightly, literally. Special light components are included in the car that offers near-supercar performance yet has the fuel consumption and CO2 emissions of an economy runabout.

It's also had a bit of a knees-up in the paint shop, taking four of the classic colour schemes used by Lotus in the 1960s - Elite Yellow, Carbon Grey, Sky Blue and Old English White - and combining them with interior design features. Says a Lotus spokesman, "it beautifully morphs function and form".

The Elise seats are clad with lightweight microfibre comfort pads positioned to give correct support, but still keeping the body-coloured seat shell partly exposed.

The exterior body colour is carried over to the transmission tunnel and combined with silver and black paint highlights, bisecting the cockpit and tying together the "sporty" theme devised for the Club Racer.

Other interior features are an anthracite anodised gear knob and handbrake sleeve, a Club Racer logo hand embroidered on the seat headrest and anodised aluminium flooring in the driver's and passenger's footwells. The small 320mm-diameter leather-rimmed steering wheel has an on-centre marker, so the "more spirited" driver can quickly identify the straight ahead position of the front wheels.

Light six-spoke alloy wheels, shod with bespoke Yokohama AD07 LTS tyres, are also anthracite anodised.

"Special editions of the Elise have always proved popular with our customers around the world, and I expect the Elise Club Racer to be no different," said Luke Bennett, director of Lotus Cars.

"The whole design package is modern with a classic twist, which matches the ride and handling of a Lotus."

Behind the glitz is a mechanical package that offers a 0-100km/h time of six seconds with overall fuel consumption of 7.6 litres per 100km and CO2 emissions of 179g per km.