Lotus Blossom for America? ; Malaysian-British roadster brings basics back to the States.(Lotus Elise)(Brief Article)

Today's ``sports cars'' are so loaded with an alphabet soup of ABS, ESP and DSC that it is nearly impossible to make the car go FUBAR. Not so the Lotus Elise, which is raw and feral underfoot, in its element as a track car. It's a purist's delight.

For the United States, Lotus plans to add nice bits like air conditioning, leather seats and a CD player. Oh, and airbags-like in the Opel/Vauxhall Speedster version of the car (AW, Nov. 26, 2001). The four-cylinder engine from MG-Rover has never been EPA-certified, and the Elise is so low that getting it through federal crash tests is proving troublesome. The solution appears to be a redesign of the nose. Bringing the Elise over is not a matter of choice for the U.S. arm of the sports car maker. It needs the Elise to replace the Esprit, which will depart in mid-2003. Lotus Cars USA CEO Arnie Johnson said at this year's Los Angeles auto show that a federalized Elise will be here by fall 2003. The American Elise will have a 120-hp low-emissions engine and sticker at $38,500, including ``everything but a hardtop,'' Johnson says.

The suspension will be a little softer here than in Europe, too, since Lotus has eyes on sales volume. It's got a plant that can build 10,000 units that's only doing half that right now. Lotus Cars USA expects to bring in 2000 Elises a year.

``We don't want to just chase the 10 percent of the audience who are petrolheads,'' says Gavan Kershaw, Lotus' chief dynamics engineer. Maybe the British fellow, interviewed at HQ in Hethel, England, doesn't understand how big 10 percent of the U.S. market is, or maybe he's serious, but there's no way the Elise is going to become anything but a car for that cadre of folks Americans call ``gearheads.'' We're bound to be excited about it if the owners (Proton and Petronas, Malaysian companies) stick with the plan to bring the car here.

When the Elise is pressed hard, the driver can feel the muscle and sinew of the car. There is a physical sense of biting brakes, engaging gears, the slip and grip of tires. That sort of immediacy between man, machine and road means driving errors are swiftly punished-though rarely in a cruel fashion-but lessons regarding the laws of physics are also learned at a much faster rate.

The novice racer's self-inflicted idiocy is forgiven a bit by understeer dialed into the suspension. Hit a hairpin corner too hot and the Elise pushes wide, though the Bridgestone Potenzas don't feel like they are knuckling under. Snap the quick-ratio steering and let off the gas, and the back end pendulums gently around. Feed in throttle, counter steer, and you have some rather wiggy four-wheel drift getting you through the corner. You can do it all day, giggling like a third-grader with a water balloon launcher.

It is almost impossible for the engine to outdrive the suspension and brakes. Not to say the 1.8-liter Rover K-series powerplant is a wheezy old bag, but it is rough and agricultural. To most people, 120 horsepower in a sports car is something to scoff at. But with a dry weight of a svelte 1565 pounds riding on a tidy 90.5-inch wheelbase, 0 to 62 mph comes up in 5.7 seconds, and 0 to 100 mph in 17.2 seconds.