Lotus to sell Elise platform; Caterham and Radford among potential buyers
British luxury sportscar manufacturer Lotus is gearing up to enter an all-electric era. The brand has has already announced that it will pull the plugs on long-standing Elise sportscar. Elise Final Edition was introduced in February 2021 alongside Exige Final Edition. Both Elise and Exige will go out of production this year, paving way for the Geely-owned brand's last petrol car Emira. Meanwhile, Lotus is mulling the plan to sell its Elise platform to some other car brand, reveals Automotive News Europe.
This means the Elise nomenclature will remain alive despite being discontinued by Lotus. The lightweight British twin-seater sportscar has been in business since 1996. Two car brands have emerged as the potential buyers for the Elise platform. These are the Caterham and Radford.
Interestingly, this is not the first time Lotus has sold a sportscar platform to some other brand. Back in 1973, Lotus sold its first sportscar Seven's platform to Caterham, which is currently owned by japanese company VT Holdings, still sells the lightweight sportscar rebadged as Caterham 7.
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Meanwhile Lotus has recently announced that it is working on the brand's first-ever sportscar, which would be based on the Lotus platform. Besides that, it will receive other mechanical bits from Lotus. The Lotus technology-based Radford sports car is expected to be unveiled in 2021. However, it is not confirm, whether the Radford model will come as a conventional ICE-powered vehicle or as an electric vehicle.
Complete details of the first Lotus-based Radford car are expected to be revealed later this year. Also, the company will soon commence receiving bookings for the project.
Speaking about the Elise Sport 240 Final Edition, it comes powered by a 1.8-litre supercharged four-cylinder engine that is tund to churn out 240 bhp of power output and 244 Nm torque. It is capable of accelerating 0-100 kmph in 4.5 seconds.
