Lotus Elise for Elisa Artioli
It’s rare for automakers to talk openly about customer names. If they do, those customers are mostly celebrities from sports, culture and politics. None of this actually applies to Elisa Artioli. But at least among car fans and especially the supporters of the Lotus brand, her name does enjoy a certain level of familiarity. Especially her family name has a reputation. Romano Artioli, her grandfather, owned various companies in the 1990s. These included the two sports car brands Bugatti and Lotus. While he ensured Bugatti was repositioned with the EB110, he also modernized Lotus in the UK. A new entry-level sports car with a bonded and riveted aluminium chassis was created under his direction. Internally, this project ran under the code 111. Since Lotus was and is known for model names beginning with the letter E, Artioli decided to modify his granddaughter Elisa’s first name to Elise. She saw the light of day in 1993.
Finale Elise for Elisa Artioli
When the new sports car was to be presented at the Frankfurt Motor Show (IAA) in 1995, Romano sat his granddaughter in the driver’s seat. The two-year-old proudly showed off her t-shirt with the words “I am Elise” written on it for the journalists’ cameras. Elise was the name of the two-seater roadster from the start of series production in 1996 to the final vehicle that recently rolled off the assembly line. There were a total of 35,124 copies. At the company headquarters in Norfolk, Lotus now handed over the final car in the color “Championship Gold” to the namesake. Elisa Artioli says goodbye to the model named after her with an emotional letter. “In 1993, when I was born, you only existed on a piece of paper. No one knew yet that we were destined to spend our lives together. It was September 12, 1995 and we were waiting to be revealed to the world, because until that moment no one had seen us, and above all no one knew that under the sheet there would not be any human being, but the two-year-old Elisa.”
Lotus future is electric
“I sat behind your wheel and proudly showed off my t-shirt that said ‘I’m Elise’ and from then on I didn’t want to leave. I felt in my world the way I feel today. When I’m with you I’m at hom and feel at home. Dear Elise, I’ve been with you from beginning to end, just as you will be with me for all my life.” In fact, a Lotus Elise Sport 240 from the Final Edition now accompanies Elisa Artioli’s life. Lotus now belongs to the Chinese Geely group, which is reorganizing the portfolio. In addition to the Elise, the Evora and the Exige were also dropped from the range. The brand history of gasoline-powered sports cars ends with the Emira presented last year. All subsequent model series, starting with the Evija supercar, will have purely electric drives.
Images: Lotus
