[jeffball]

Lightness of weight and ideal polar moment of inertia are strengths in the Elan in an autocross situation; especially on tight courses. I raced a 1970 Lotus Super Seven SS twincam for quite a few years and was rarely beaten for fast time of the day. I won the Colorado SCCA series championship four years in a row in B Prep class. It also held a world record for the quarter mile....it would turn 13.7 seconds at 103mph at 1,200 feet elevation; not bad for 95 cubic inches. The car weighed 1180 pounds. It was sweet to put the stock big-ironed muscle cars on the trailer at the drag strip. I think the Elan should tip the scales at under 1,400 pounds. The stock Elan engine shows about 108 horsepower on an SAE-spec engine dyno when equipped with 40mm Webers and a bit less on Strombergs.

Originally Posted by LandQuail

I met a guy from the British Motoring Club of Arkansas who said that he races his totally stock Lotus Elan S2 in the A-Stock class at SCCA Autocross events. I drive a WRX-STi, and I'm in A-Stock.

This guy said that he'd never been beat; said his little Elan had outgunned Porsches, Ferraris, Corvettes (of course), and most alarmingly, STis and EVOs.

I knew that the Elan is has handling that borders on the miraculous, but I just can't imagine a car running on three-inch wide tires and pushing out about 120hp could be that quick, even around something as tight as an autocross course. His entire contact patch for 4 tires might be almost as much as that of one of my tires.

I believe the guy, but I'd like to hear about some coraborating evidence. That's just incredible.