This $110,000 Lotus Elise Makes Everything Lighter, Including Your Wallet

Every day we wake up to a new and exciting way to spend a whole bunch of money on an old "reimagined" car. Most of the time, these are just exercises in rich guys flexing on each other. But sometimes there's someone doing something unique enough to deserve a little attention, and maybe creating something worth the spend. InoKinetic's new Lotus Elise 111RS is fast and friendly without resorting to massive horsepower increases and giant sticky tires. Instead, this car takes the Lotus philosophy to its limits, staying as light as possible. When the car weighs just a smidge over 2,000 pounds, you don't need much power to make it go. 

You'll be forgiven if you've never heard of InoKinetic, but the company is well known in Lotus circles for building track- and racing-focused components for the Elise and Exige. The company wanted to build the ultimate driver's grade street-going Elise, and the result is this $75,000 upgrade package. For that money, you get a Mountune-built 275-horsepower supercharged Toyota 2ZZ engine, upgraded suspension, brakes, shifter, exhaust, revamped gearbox, and more. Every mechanical component is modified to fit InoKinetic's vision, and the entire car is rebuilt to drive brand new. The company calls the finished car "the ultimate analog sports car."

A car reviewer who has driven basically everything on the planet, Matt Farah of The Smoking Tire, had this to say about the car, "As a fizz delivering machine, this is incredibly superb." In fairness, the standard Lotus Elise was already quite adept at delivering the fizz, but it sounds like InoKinetic has ramped it up a few steps. Farah says the car costs around $110k with the parts assembled, but there are all sorts of pick-and-choose components available from InoKinetic, so you can likely build one that's a bit less pricey — starting with the engine alone which will cost $15k on top of the price of a used Lotus. Farah's conclusion after driving the car? "It is among the lightest and purest cars you can drive."

"A [Porsche 911] GT3 is like a [Rolls-Royce] Phantom compared to this thing," exclaimed Farah, driving the 111RS on the famed Angeles Crest Highway. That simple statement might say everything you need to know about this car. The GT3 is revered, but the latest version weighs over 3,200 pounds, so it's hard to consider it a lightweight sports car. If you're really looking for a pure and unadulterated driving experience today, at least in a street-legal package with a roof, air conditioning, and an audio system, you've got to look to the Elise, a car that hasn't been produced for the U.S. market since August of 2011!

A lot of modified cars feel like old cars with a bunch of parts thrown at them, but the 111RS apparently feels much more cohesive, like it was engineered to work together. There was plenty of opportunity for InoKinetic to muck it up here, but it didn't take things too far. Is it possible that after nearly 20 years of development, the old Lotus Elise has finally been perfected? Based on The Smoking Tire's video, that sure seems possible. 

Paying $25,000 to $35,000 for a beat up but complete Elise and giving an additional $75,000 to InoKinetic for a complete overhaul is a whole lot of money. But there are limited options for cars that perform like this car for less cash. The aforementioned Porsche GT3 is going to run you at least a quarter of a million dollars, even more for an RS model. Maybe a pure track car could deliver the speed and balance, but then you can't take it on your favorite roads. By that math, this re-imagined Lotus might just be a bargain.