British luxury car company Lotus has unveiled its limited-edition Lotus Elise Cup 260.

Produced to coincide with the firm’s 70th anniversary in 2018, the car highlights Lotus’ motorsport successes, with laurel and Union Flag decals in addition to the option of finishing the car in ‘Championship Gold’.

Racing car heritage

Jean-Marc Gales, CEO, Group Lotus plc said: ‘The Elise Cup 260 is directly developed from the Elise racing cars that are competing in series around the world. [It features] more power, motorsport components and the introduction of aerodynamics unheard of in its class make driving this Elise an unrivalled experience.’

The Elise Cup 260 features 180kg of downforce at the car’s top speed of 151 mph. Key to this performance statistic are the new louvred front wheel-arch vents, lightweight carbon fibre front splitter and wide high-mounted rear wing.

The car also comes with lightweight carbon fibre and composite components as standard, in addition to a supercharged 1.8-litre engine, six-speed manual gearbox with sports ratios and ultra-lightweight motorsport forged alloy wheels.

Special edition appeal

Gales added: ‘As we near the 70th anniversary of the inception of Colin Chapman’s engineering legacy, it’s only right that we build the very best cars as special editions, and the Elise Cup 260 is certainly worthy of that accolade.

‘Our special editions have always proved extremely popular with our customers around the world, and we know they value the extensive development work that goes into each one. With just 30 examples to be built, there’s no doubt that the Elise Cup 260 is a future classic.’

For more about the Lotus Elise Cup 260, click here.