A truly quick lap does indeed require some bravery but, equally, the hardcore Elise effortlessly lays the ground for that sort of dagger-between-your-teeth commitment.
It is so faithful and so responsive that you naturally find yourself braking later and later until, maybe, you simply don’t brake at all. With its Toyo tyres on the boil, this 699kg roadster is utterly mesmerising.
It’s fair to say that the little Lotus – the only real Lotus in the vicinity, some of us might be inclined to say – is a car in which you can easily lose yourself.
And is that not what a driver’s car should be all about? It gives the driver that heavenly one-to-one sense of connection with the machine, and no matter how hard you go, it will follow along with you in lockstep.
If we had the time, I could string 40 laps together just for the sheer joy of it, and I’m certainly not alone with that sentiment.
The Elise is a device you can enjoy on the road, too, with the caveats of occasional tramlining and a slight sketchiness in the damp. But that really is it. The manner with which Analogue Automotive has made this car feel so able and uncompromising on track but laugh-out-loud rewarding on the road is special indeed.
As Frankel summarises: “Here is the exception to the general rule that the more powerful an Elise, the less rewarding it ultimately is.” A restomod has never won BBDC, but might that change this year? There’s much to suggest it could happen.
In comparison with the Elise, the Artura’s mechanical complexity is almost bewildering – and yet the experience is still remarkably pure: these cars are not so different, after all. How, though, can something like the 691bhp, hybridised, electronics-laden McLaren possibly compete with the tiny Lotus in terms of driving satisfaction?
Well, the truth is that it can’t, not really – and yet it somehow does. It takes the same ingredients of unimpeachable balance, supreme precision, honest communication and incredible forward visibility and packages them up in a car that dials down the rawness but cranks up the versatility, the unflappability and, good grief, the level of performance.
