Hey… a wood car… look everyone, it’s 1910 again! Can I get a hemp-fiber hood made for my Cobalt? I’m sure it would go over very well with all the granolas out there. This has to be some kind of prank… I didn’t think you could get much more fuel efficient in a sports car. Maybe Lotus just needs to adapt the Prius’ hybrid powertrane into an Elise… 60MPG and still run circles around a ‘vette.

Hemp huh- you know Woody Harrelson is happy, i’m sure he’ll be the first one in line to buy this

All Lotus needed to do is to shrink its cabin by another 3″ so only anorexic could drive it (you have to be pretty slim and acrobatic to get in and out of Lotus as it is). Here comes the weight savings. Out of all exotic cars Elise was already most planet friendly.

jumpoffit, what Woody plans to do drive or smoke it?

Pfft, hypocrites. If they were serious about the environment they’d stop killing the planet and start exclusively manufacturing bicycles using renewable materials.

Nice. In the real wet areas, your car is more likely to grow moss and rot away.

Ya, this is a publicity stunt at best. It’s not like a stock elise is a hog, nor is it too practical. They’re just jumping on the bandwagon.

Well the solar panels look pretty cool. I’m all for lighter cars whether the panels are carbon fiber or some rare wood. Either one would cost a pretty penny to replace if it gets wrecked. Now try putting this in a car people over 6 feet tall can drive.

Like a fat Republican discussing food shortage issues during a four-course meal, Lotus, one of few high-performance niche-market automobile manufacturers, is flaunting its eco-friendliness by continuing to do all those things it does anyways — making lightweight cars with fewer parasitic drains on the engine. Say what you will, marketing is nothing more than a way of saying the same thing to different people.

But it is the LED in the rev-counter that is really spiteful towards eco-activists. Good move! To add insult to injury, Lotus is now informing the driver of when to avoid shifting (despite what the press release says), in effect maximizing the “sod off, tree hugger!” ethos of the high performance automobile.

Well done!

Hemp solar panels, whats next shroom based tires, LSD based seat foam and dont forget the Ecstasy derived fuel to power it.
Brings new meaning to roadtrippin.

I believe in England Lotus sells a version of the Elise with the Toyota 1ZZ engine making 130 HP. A little less power but still fun and it gets 40+ MPG

Dude! Don’t bogart the Elise.

Once again small and agile Lotus pushes the envelope, even though some aspects seem silly, they are attempting things that others overlook.

I get the idea, but a shift light for performance car? Hopefully it also comes with a roll of black electrical tape. To cover the idiot light.

that elise is sick!

A quote from sniff petrol
“Lotus has announced plans to celebrate making 5000 different and slightly pointless special edition versions of the Elise by building a new special edition Elise.

The Elise 5001 will come only in a distinctive shade of green that is exclusive to this model, even though it’s almost identical to another colour that was on some other Elise last year, or maybe the year before. This will be topped off by an orange stripe that is unique to the 5001, although you can order it as an option on other Elises.

Completely the exterior makeover are a set of distinctive alloy wheels with one very special feature – where the regular Elise offers only black painted wheels as an option, the 5001 boasts alloys that are sprayed very very very dark grey.

Inside, Lotus promises a number of changes, although it warns that ‘a number’ is actually quite a vague expression and can of course include ‘a number’ such as one. That’s why the 5001 will come with an exclusive badge badly stuck to the dashboard and some seats and stuff that are just out of the normal car.

If you could spec all these options on a regular Elise, which actually you can, it would cost you £35,990, whereas the 5001 will retail for just £35,985. The bad news is that, with so many special editions to make, Lotus has been forced to limit production to a total of just one 5001. However, Hethel sources say the company is already planning its next exciting new special edition model, tipped to be called the Elise Milking It.”

Disposal of smashed body panels will certainly draw a crowd.