A British racing icon reborn

In 1952, a British bloke by the name of Colin Chapman created a car company to fund his love of motor racing. That company was, and still is, Lotus.

Having won 79 Grand Prix's and seven Formula One Constructors championships, the car company has a pedigree almost unrivalled in the motoring world today.

Another interesting fact is Lotus' impressive engine-building capacity. Many large automotive companies contract Lotus to build or develop their engines and some 10% of all new cars made in Europe - we're talking Peugeot, Rover, Citroën, Renault - are powered by a Lotus-developed mill.

More recently Lotus has finished work on a rather spiffy special-edition Lotus, the Elise Type 72.

The Type 72 harks back to 1970, when Lotus was kicking serious butt in the Formula One Grand Prix competition. Built from 1970-1975, the Type 72 was a radically new F1 car, which Colin Chapman helped build, incorporating a wedge-shaped front wing design.

The Lotus Type 72 was an amazing vehicle, accumulating some 20 Grand Prix wins, plus two Drivers Championships and three Constructors Championship titles.

Back then, the F1 car has a 3.0-litre V8, but today the Elise Type 72, more of tribute than a replica, has but a 1.8-litre inline four.

The Elise Type 72 has much in common with its classic forebear, such as a lightweight aluminium chassis, GRP body and the sumptuous Lotus-tuned ride and handling.

Different to the standard Elise in number of areas, the Type 72 has a rather dark and menacing colour scheme. With gold alloy wheels, two gold heritage "laurels" on either side of the car and a jet black paint job, this is one mean-looking sportster.

The bold colour scheme is extended to the interior of the Type 72 also, with golden Alcantara on the seat cushions, steering wheel centre and door panels.

Each headrest has embroidered gold heritage laurels and each car comes with an exclusive Heritage Identification Plate, based on the design of the chassis plates of the Lotus Formula 1 cars, mounted on the dash board.

Mechanically, the Elise Type 72 is exactly the same as its precursor, but this is no bad thing, seeing as the original 2002 Elise is one impressive piece of kit.

A fair amount of power is generated at low revs -- in comparison to capacity -- yet it's 1.8-litre inline four-cylinder mill makes a rather uninspiring 90kW of power @ 5500rpm, and 168Nm of torque @ 4500rpm.

But don't let the car's diminuitive powerplant fool you either - this is one seriously fast sportscar. It's power-to-weight ratio is a more important criterion for judging this car's performance potential, as it can reach 100km/h from standstill in just 5.7 seconds - about the same as the 300kW HSV GTS Coupe.

Interestingly, the new Type 72 and its more generic (if you can call it that) sibling, the Elise, are not for sale in the US, since the tiny 1.8-litre engine doesn't meet struct U.S emissions standards.

Word is though, that General Motors may look at supplying Lotus' Elise with its 2.2-litre Ecotec mill, the same such engine which powers Holden's warmed-up Astra SRi.

This would then allow Lotus to sell its nimble Elise in the world's largest car market and would also boost power to a tasty 108kW.

Because the engine is mid-mounted - behind the driver - the Elise Type 72 is endowed with some seriously sporty handling dynamics. The centre of gravity is reduced in this way, aiding turn-in, among other things, and together with a curb weight of just 756kg, this Lotus doesn't hang about.

Top speed is a smidge over 200km/h and with ventilated 282mm disc brakes at all four corners, the Type 72 Elise would make for a superb track-day tool.

A truly impressive sportscar, the Type 72 Elise could, in future, offer even more inspiring performance if a recent rumour from inside Lotus HQ is to be believed. The company is apparently working on a completely new engine design, one that does away with camshafts and push rods altogether.

So how do the valves actuate, you ask? Hydraulically. Instead of one or two cam profiles, one profile for ecomony and one for performance, the new Lotus deisgn would allow fro some 250-plus constantly variable valve profiles, which could change at every cycle, depending on where the gas pedal is, what revs the engine is doing and so forth.

This would essentially reduce emmissions and increase power output significantly. Instead of max power occuring at 6000rpm for example, the new system would allow most conventional engines to hit max power at perhaps 1000rpm or lower, and deliver peak power all the way to the redline, which may be 6500rpm. It's really quite mind biggling, really.

Hydraulic valve actuation would revolutionise engine making the world over and would also allow the humble petrol engine a longer life thanks to dramatically reduced emissions. So, will we see a 2008 Type 72 Lotus Elise with hydraulically actuated valves? Yeah, we think so.