Lotus Cars USA has begun offering supercharger kits to go along with their Elise and Exige models. The kit includes higher flow injectors, a supercharger with integrated intake manifold and new ECU calibrations. It also complies with all legal standards in the United States. The kit also brings 189 HP up to an impressive 218 HP; torque jumps from 133 ft.-lbs. up to approximately 155 ft.-lbs.

“Lotus Elise and Exige owners are genuine driving enthusiasts and that’s what has attracted them to Lotus cars in the first place,” said Lotus Cars USA, Inc. Director of Operations Arnie Johnson. “They will fully appreciate the dramatically enhanced driving character these Lotus Supercharger Kits will bring their vehicles and the peace of mind from a fully warranted, factory engineered kit.”

No price has been listed by the car manufacturer yet.

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Tesla and Lotus have together issued a recall regarding 2008 Roadster’s and 2009 Elise and Exiges.

The official recall notice points to the fact that the rear hube flange bolts on some of the 345 Roadsters produced in 2008 may not have been properly torqued which could lead to decreasingly worse vehicle handling and a rubbing noise from the back of the vehicle. The rubbing noise obviously isn’t a big deal but a car with decreased handling poses all sorts of safety hazards.

If you didn’t know, Lotus provides Tesla with some engineering, mainly the Roadster’s main chassis which shares some parts with their Elise and Exige models thus leaving them to issue a similar recall.

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Purist Edition

In an attempt to attract buyers, Lotus is offering lots of features for less and they’re calling it the ‘Elise Purist Edition’. It is built around a Sport-package Elise with all of the options of the Touring package, but minus the leather-trimmed transmission tunnel, leather door inserts and iPod interface. This car starts out more than $3,000 below what the sticker price would be normally, starting at $44,920 (including shipping). A base Elise starts at $48,175 (including shipping).

The Purist Edition Elise will be available in three colors- Ardent Red, Monaco White and Saffron Yellow. The black leather interior is complemented by a Momo leather steering wheel, CD player, air conditioning and a starter button. Like other standard Elises, the car is powered by a 1.8L four-banger good for 189hp (141kW) that is rather spritely, dashing from 0-60mph (96km/h) in 4.9 seconds, with a top speed of 150mph (241km/h).

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