30 Cool 90’s Cars

Photo by Eddy Clio

20. Lotus Elise

The Lotus Elise was released in 1996 by Lotus Cars. The body of the vehicle was made of hand-finished fiberglass and the chassis was made of aluminium. This kept weight and production costs to a minimum. The Elise was named after Elisa, the granddaughter of Romano Artioli who was chairman of Lotus at the time. Even though the Elise only had a 118 horsepower engine, the incredibly low weight of the vehicle allowed it to reach 60 mph in 5.8 seconds and hit a top speed of 150 mph. The suspension was well tuned, giving the Elise great stability. A number of higher-performance variants of the Elise were released, giving the vehicle better performance on the track or street.