The Lotus Elise is a two-seat, rear-wheel drive, mid-engined roadster conceived in early 1994 and released in September 1996 by the British manufacturer Lotus Cars. The Elise has a fibreglass body shell atop its bonded extruded aluminium chassis that provides a rigid platform for the suspension, while keeping weight and production costs to a minimum. It is capable of speeds up to 240 km/h (150 mph). The Elise was named after Elisa Artioli, the granddaughter of Romano Artioli who was chairman of Lotus and Bugatti at the time of the car's launch.
Caterham Cars is a British manufacturer of specialist lightweight sports cars established in Caterham, Surrey, with their headquarters in Crawley, Sussex. Their current model, the Caterham 7, originally launched in 1973, is a direct evolution of the Series 3 Lotus Seven designed by Colin Chapman. In the 1990s the company made the Caterham 21, a two-seater soft top alternative to the MGF and Lotus Elise,. A track-only car, the SP/300.R, a joint project with Lola was released for customer testing in 2010 and was scheduled for release in 2013. On 27 April 2011, Team Lotus owner Tony Fernandes announced that he had purchased Caterham.
The Mercedes-Benz 300 SEL 6.3 was a full-sized luxury performance car built by Mercedes Benz from 1968 to 1972. It featured the company's powerful 6.3-litre M100 V8 from the flagship 600 (W100) limousine installed in the normally six-cylinder powered but top-end Mercedes-Benz 300 SEL (W109). The result was a nearly 2-ton sports sedan with muscle car performance. At the time of its release it was the world's fastest four-door car.
The Lotus Esprit is a British sports car that was built by Lotus Cars at their Hethel factory in England between 1976 and 2004. It was among the first of designer Giorgetto Giugiaro's polygonal "folded paper" designs.
The Nissan S30 is the first generation of Z GT 3-door two-seat coupés, produced by Nissan Motors, Ltd. of Japan from 1969 to 1978. One of the most successful sports car lines ever produced, the trend-setting S30 was designed by a team led by Yoshihiko Matsuo, the head of Nissan's Sports Car Styling Studio.
The Mitsubishi 6A1 engine is a series of piston V6 engines from Mitsubishi Motors, found in their small and medium vehicles through the 1990s. They ranged from 1.6 to 2.5 L in size, and came with a variety of induction methods and cylinder head designs and configurations.
The Lotus Exige is a British two-door, two-seat sports car made by Lotus Cars since 2000. Originally a more-hardcore coupé version of the Lotus Elise roadster, since the Series 3 the Exige has been the larger-engined model of the family - using a V6 engine in place of the Elise's straight 4 with convertible versions of both available.
In automotive engineering a multi-valve or multivalve engine is one where each cylinder has more than two valves. A multi-valve engine has better breathing and may be able to operate at higher revolutions per minute (RPM) than a two-valve engine, delivering more power.
The Renault 5 Turbo or R5 Turbo is a sport hatchback automobile launched by the French manufacturer Renault at the Brussels Motor Show in January 1980. The car was primarily designed for rallying, but was also sold in a street version.
The Lotus 900 series is a family of internal combustion engines designed and built by Lotus Cars of United Kingdom. Successor to the Lotus-Ford Twin Cam, the 900 was the first complete engine developed by Lotus. The engine was built from 1972 to 1999.
The Mercedes-Benz W210 was the internal designation for a range of executive cars manufactured by Mercedes-Benz and marketed under the E-Class model name in both sedan/saloon (1995-2002) and station wagon/estate (1995-2003) configurations. W210 development started in 1988, three years after the W124's introduction.
Venturi is a Monaco-based automotive manufacturer. Founded in 1984 by French engineers Claude Poiraud and Gérard Godfroy as MVS , the company's purpose was to compete in the "Grand Tourisme" market. This was only the most recent post-war attempt at building a sporty luxury car in France, following in the footsteps of Facel Vega, Monica, and Ligier. As with its predecessors, Venturi was immediately faced with many challenges ranging from an unknown name to its under-capitalized and under-staffed state. Venturi did nonetheless manage to continue in production for nearly sixteen years, declaring bankruptcy in 2000. The same year, Monegasque Gildo Pallanca Pastor purchased Venturi, and decided to focus on electric-powered motors. This change of direction led to the limited-production Fétish, the first electric sports car in the world. Following the public's enthusiasm for this first electric model, the brand developed 5 other innovative concept cars.
The Alpine A110 is a sports car produced by French automobile manufacturer Alpine from 1961 to 1977. The car was styled as a "Berlinette", which in the post-WWII era refers to a small enclosed two-door Berline, better-known as a coupé. The Alpine A110 succeeded the earlier A108. The car was powered by a succession of Renault engines. A modern iteration of the A110 was introduced in 2017 developed under Renault-Nissan partnership.
Alpina Burkard Bovensiepen GmbH & Co. KG is an automobile manufacturing company based in Buchloe, in the Ostallgäu district of Bavaria, Germany that develops and sells high-performance versions of BMW and Mini cars.
Hommell is a French Automobile manufacturer, started in 1990 by Michel Hommell, a former racing driver and the owner of Échappement, a French car magazine. The company is based in Lohéac, near Rennes, Brittany. A prototype of the kind of sports car he would like to be produced was shown at the 1990 Paris Salon, where it was well received, encouraging him to go ahead with a production version. This was shown at the 1994 Geneva Motor Show. The 2 seat sports coupe is powered by a mid-mounted 2.0lt Peugeot engine and 6 speed gearbox in a tubular steel chassis with all-round independent suspension.
The Artega GT is a mid-engined, rear wheel drive 2-seat sports car produced by German automobile manufacturer Artega between 2009 and 2012. The GT was Artega's first model. A total of 153 units were produced.
The Hennessey Venom GT is a high performance sports car manufactured by Texas-based Hennessey Performance Engineering. The Venom GT is based on the Lotus Elise/Exige.
Hennessey Performance Engineering is an American tuning house specializing in modifying sports cars from several brands including Ferrari, Porsche, McLaren, Chevrolet, Dodge, Cadillac, Lotus, Jeep, Ford, GMC, Lincoln and Lexus. Established in 1991 by John Hennessey, their main facility is located 45 minutes west of Houston, Texas in Sealy, Texas. The firm focuses on mechanical component modification for creating high-powered cars. Besides performance automobiles, they also tune pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles such as Ford Raptors and Jeep Grand Cherokees. They also work on luxury cars such as Bentleys and muscle cars like the Dodge Charger and Challenger.
Mercedes-Benz W202 is the internal designation for a compact sedan/saloon manufactured and marketed by Mercedes-Benz 1993–2000, as the first generation of the C-Class, now in its fourth generation. Replacing the 190 series/W201 in May of 1993, the C-Class sedan was Mercedes' entry-level model until 1997, when the company launched the A-Class. Production reached 1,847,382 over model years 1994–2000.
The Lotus 3-Eleven is a sports car produced by British car manufacturer Lotus Cars. The car is available as a racing version as well as a normal road legal version.
