Fresh from her winter season love story that got them noticed, the Elise comes home at Forza Horizon 4 as one of the prize cars and since I won her having fought numerous challenges in the winter season, it's time to welcome her back to where she belongs.
So, who is she then? Well, Elise is the successor of the lightweight Lotus Elan, which sets the prime example of Lotus' key philosophy where they value aerodynamics and lightness first before anything else. She has a fiberglass body shell atop her aluminum chassis that provides a rigid platform for the suspension and apart from that lightweight body work, the 1.8L Rover K-Series engine mated to a 6-speed manual, despite its low power output of 118hp, made it capable of sprinting from 0-60mph in less than six seconds and onwards to 150mph. In her time, the Series I Elise has spawn numerous variants right up to the Sport 190 which produces 190hp of power from her 1.8L engine.
Although Miss Elise doesn't like telling her short biodata, she wants to see how much of a car she has left after her stint of being the heroine of a winter season love story. She might have jet lags but she can still go like rocket-propelled grenade and with that, it's show time.
Job well done, there's nothing else I can say about it.
Valentines comes into full throttle as Regal Entertainment shifts gear into the month of love with the most noteworthy rom-com movie event of 2019, bringing Enchong Dee and Janine Gutierrez in the hot seat as they buckle themselves up for the feel good rom-com film titled Elise.
Elise
In this month-of-love offering by Regal Entertainment, this rom-com is about Bert (played by Enchong Dee) who falls in love with Elise (Janine Gutierrez) but then separated to pursue their studies only to meet again as time goes by.
Strapping yourselves to the hot seat of Elise, the experience of watching this coming-of-age rom-com movie is somewhat good for people who are bittersweet this month of love and whether if you are going full throttle or under the speed limit of what lies ahead on this film, this rom-com always tread lightly but carefully with its slight sense of humor, emotional feedback, drama, and the chemistry it delivers. Sometimes, this film can be a bit difficult to get in and get out of because it feels a bit cramped but being a light rom-com film, you really want to keep your foot down to experience more on Elise.
This rom-com offering from Regal Entertainment maybe small and underpowered but its light-hearted chemistry makes you want to go for the extra mile until it reaches the checkered flag of the film. Want to watch this rom-com? Then it's lights out and away we go as Elise goes full throttle into cinemas now.
Lotus pioneered the sports car realm with the philosophy of "simplify and add lightness", valuing aerodynamics over power and that kind of philosophy won the hearts of many hardcore car enthusiasts looking for something that is free from the distractions that hinder their joy of driving, especially those concessions of comfort that are deemed unnecessary for sportscars. However, what happens when Lotus turns the other way around? You get with the Elise GT1, of course.
I picked this ultra-rare Lotus from Forza Motorsport 7's Totino's Car Pack and while this car brings me back to the corner of my childhood, there's a lot of explaining to do about this ultra-rare, ultra-hardcore take on the Lotus Elise. The Lotus Elise has spawned three competition versions and the first was the Elise GT1.
The Elise GT1 features a carbon fiber bodywork nested to its bonded-aluminum backbone chassis modified to accomodate the 3.5L V8 twin turbo engine from the Esprit. In its road-legal state, it produces 350HP of power but in race tune, it produces over 550HP of power - in a car that weighs less than 2,000 lbs.
Apart from that, the Elise GT1 features a full competition suspension and 14-inch disc brakes with 6-piston calipers for dramatic stopping power.
This Elise is a massive flop to Lotus. Ever since they compete in the FIA GT Championship, Lotus are looking for a suitable replacement to the aging Esprit in their racing portfolio and they've chosen the Elise as their next race car for the job. Due to financial reasons, they only built one road-going car that is unavailable for public. Lotus made seven Elise GT1 race chassis were built and while most of them never made it to the finish line due to mechanical issues, only a few made it to the end of the race. Due to such lackluster results, Lotus and parent company Proton decided to axe the program.
It's a shame that Lotus wasted a lot of money for such a lackluster performance with the Elise GT1 but since I'm driving the only road-legal in its existence, what's like the drive it? In my experience, you'll get the feeling that you're driving a Hennessey Venom before it was cool but this is not the Venom, it's actually an Elise beefed up with the engine of the Esprit and it's not as intimidating as it looks. Because it was set to 350HP of power, which is the road-legal mode of course, you don't get scared pretty easily and despite its intimidating looks, it handles pretty much like what a Lotus should be, making it a proper track toy as I shall now prove with a lap round the Top Gear Track.
This car really is quick by modern standards and because of such performance, let's take the beastly Lotus to another part of Britain which is...
...Silverstone, of course.
Ah, the venue of the British Grand Prix, this is the perfect opportunity to demonstrate the Lotus at its best and with that, it's time to see if this ultimate flop has the guts to be called a hardcore Lotus compared to the most hardcore of all...
This is the Lotus 3-Eleven, the fastest and the most hardcore Lotus ever made and it was the fastest Lotus to lap round the Nurburgring to lap the sub-seven minute mark. Since both of these machines are set to road-legal use, it's quite questionable to see which is which on the track but since I got all of the ingredients here, it's time to see which of the hardcore Lotuses is the most hardcore of them all.
And now, the results...
3-Eleven - 2:21.204
Elise GT1 - 2:24.821
It's true what Lotus said, the Elise GT1 was a complete disaster for the company but look at this way, despite being a total flop, it became an inspiration for Hennessey to create the Venom GT because if it weren't for the Elise GT1, the Texans wouldn't made the car that shattered world speed records in a pinch. It really is a Venom GT before it was cool and while it wasn't as hardcore as I hoped for, this car really takes me back to the time when I first introduced myself to the world of Lotus Cars from the Elan, the Esprit, and most famously, the Elise.
When the producers think about putting large truck in the world of Forza, in the case of the 2015 Mercedes-Benz #24 Tankpool24 Racing Truck from the T10 Select Car Pack, available now, every player from around the world got thrown in with mixed reactions, most of them saying what's a truck doing in the world of Forza. There's a major clear explanation why they put a heavyweight in this game via a DLC pack...
Ever since the FIA created the European Truck Racing Championship three decades ago, the world got mixed in with them with the idea of turning machines made for shipping duties everyday, apart from making problems with traffic nowadays despite truck bans, into racing titans in the world's finest racetracks across Europe, including the Nurburgring and Circuit de la Sarthe. Those trucks made for racing purposes weigh 12,000 lbs, equipped with special equipment, thousand horsepower of power output, ten thousand pounds-foot of torque, and there goes a recipe for creating a very unique race so unique, the producers wanted a slice of it in the game.
The Tankpool24 Racing Team, formerly called the MB Motorsports truck racing team, started their racing career at the 1995-1996 International touring car racing and began their truck racing journey in 1997 with drivers including truck racing legend Markus Oestreich, Ellen Lohr, Jordi Gene and Steffi Halm. The team was under the supervision of Markus Bauer, who manages a group of volunteers from the service area of Mercedes-Benz and has also recruited Team Hahn's top engineer, Stefan Honens.
Piloted by Andre Kursim and Roland Rehfeld, this Racing Truck, based on the Mercedes Actros MP4 semi-truck, fought for nine rounds in the 2015 FIA Euro Truck Racing Championship season. Despite last year's poor result, Kursim continues on the 2016 season alongside last year's champion, Norbert Kiss, who made a switch to this team during a pre-season announcement.
Driving a racing truck is different than driving a racecar, apart from its titanic weight it delivers, because driving one of these is like piloting a B1 or a B2 bomber in the skies above. Yes, that was a bit of a compliment but having to learn about the truck's complex machinery, and its 10-speed gearbox specially designed for ETRC use, it should be a piece of cake trying to handle a truck just like handling a sportscar on the bends. It takes guts and determination to master this heavyweight monster but if you're getting used to it, Oh yeah and while you're enjoying it, it's recommend to play with it on Cockpit View or Chase View because that bulk of the machine really blocks your view and you really can't see where you're going on its third person perspective.
Having satisfied with a big lorry with power output beyond Veyron levels, I decided to do some experiment round the Nurburgring Grand Prix Circuit to see how track-worthy this Racing Truck this and to do that, I need a little control for this experiment and I think I found one...
This old Lotus Elise should do it and what I'm going to do is to do a little David and Goliath test to prove if the giant truck can go round the track as fast as this lightweight mosquito.
And now the results...
2:29.506 - Elise
2:33.631 - Truck
It's a shock result. The truck made it round the track four seconds slower than the lightweight car. Man, this truck sure knows how to catch up despite being a whopper of a size. It's a clear say that with so many oddballs going on around in the FM6 car roster such as Fast Five's Gurkha, the Cadillac XTS Limo, and this, looks like the weirdness keeps on going for the producers to think of. Wonder what else they'll put up next in the future of Forza?
Still, this diesel titan gave us a whole new level of enjoyment in FM6 and having satisfied with how the Racing Truck performs, it feels like a Perfect Day To Burn Some Diesel. Keep On Trucking, folks. Who knows what surprises we might get there with this hunk of metal.
Lotus is a well known British car manufacturer that always using the key mantra that other car companies imitated, which goes by the saying "simplify and add lightness". The Elise is one of its prime specimens because this British car company has been with us for a very long time. Sure the founder, Colin Chapman, passed away several years ago, and Lotus is currently owned by some Malaysian conglomerate called DRB-Hicom, but its history can't be overlooked by many. It's one of the cars that expressed the true form of a British sportscar, a car that we always keep going even when wet because it's the Brits' way of life. They always get used to bad weather and even when its raining, they always drive with the roof down.
Now for the first time ever, in the world of Gran Turismo 6, Lotus enthusiasts now got the chance to try out the latest Lotus Elise. Sure it maybe a facelifted version of the Series II Elise but the one thing you may notice is the engine. The previous model have a Toyota Celica engine but for the new model, the Celica 1.8L engine has been thrown away and downsized to a 1.6L Toyota engine. No other JDM engines had this one, you know.
Lotus says that in this entry-level model, the power output of the 1.6L engine is identical to the old 1.8L engine it replaces. It develops about 134HP of power output while fuel economy is now increased by up to 23%. The old 5-speed gearbox has now added an additional gear so that now, it's a 6-speed stick shift. Even though it weighs 876kg, the Elise can flatout at 204kph and a 0-100kph time of under seven seconds, as identical as the previous model.
So, with those new updates and the downsized engine, does it still behave like a Lotus Elise? The British sports car that won our hearts because of its old-fashion British lifestyle?
Well, it does behave like a Lotus Elise and it still behaves like a proper British sportscar. Even though for a small car in such bite-sized chunks, it still has the good old British Bulldog spirit because in today's climate, even the tiniest of the few can shatter the convention proving that might can be light.
So, if the new Elise does pretty well, how can it stack up against its predecessors? To find out, we say hello to our old friends the Series I Elise and the previous Series II Elise.
This Series I Lotus Elise I have here is the one with the 1.8L Rover engine while the Series II Elise I have is the top-of-the-line 111R model which comes with the 1.8L Toyota engine, the same engine you can find on the Celica. So what's the venue for this Elise comparison test? It's Brands Hatch. The layout? The Indy Circuit. The rule? Fastest time wins.
The race begins. Although they both weigh under a ton, there's a downside regarding the new Elise we've been driving in this comparo because the thing is that this entry level model's 1.6L engine produces about less power than the 111R model of the previous Series II Elise. Not only the new model is about 121kg more than the old Series I model but it's also 16kg more than the Series II Elise 111R. However, with such downsides to the new model, will it succeed in this comparo. Let's not forget that being light, they're fast in the corners and have absolutely no problem at all. They are as nippy as a Sinclair C5 powered by fish-and-chips.
So, it's a shock result. Although the new Elise fared well against the Series I Elise, it was ousted by the old Series II Elise with the 1.8L Toyota engine on it! But I think it's safe to say that all good scientists are facing a bitter loss and I think the new Elise just...failed to beat the old model even when the old model in question is a 190HP 1.8L Toyota engine-powered British sports car.
