Crazy Wide Body Elise/Exige with a claimed 700 HP! NOT the Hennessey.....

[Blitz187]

I stumbled onto this on Jalopnik and thought it was worthy of posting here... Pretty insane ride if you ask me...

Hey you, insane person, here's your car. It's a turbocharged, supercharged and intercooled Lotus Exige with a claimed 550HP 700HP (!), a wide-body kit, fully race-prepped interior and weighing 2,150 lbs. The best part? It's for sale. Updated.

Okay, clean up the keyboard drool or wipe down your iPad. This friends is a fine example of why we're car nuts. A speed freak who goes by the handle Ronin on the MonkeyTuner.com forums has built what's probably the baddest Lotus Exige on the planet, barring of course the stretched-wheelbase Hennessey Venom GT. of course, it wasn't always this way, in fact it wasn't always an Exige, it started out as a Elise, feather-light curb weight of 2,005 lbs and 204 HP supercharged Toyota 1.8-liter inline 4, it did 0-60 MPH in 4.3 seconds and carved canyons like a British butcher. Then this Ronin fellow got his hands on it. For a weight penalty of just 75 lbs he completely reworked the car with Exige body styling, and added another 346 HP (that's 170% more power for you math types) dropping the lbs/HP from 9.8 lbs/HP to 3.9 lbs/HP. That's hypercar territory.

How'd he do it? Added a turbocharger, custom exhaust manifold, rigid ducting, an air to water intercooler and more internal reinforcement than Dita Von Teese's bustier. He also chucked pretty much everything inside in favor of carbon fiber racing seats, carbon fiber panels, and all the requisite racing telematic hardware.

Sorry, we had to stop there to put our pants back on. Anyway, in addition to adding power and adding lightness, he also went ahead and stretched the track width front and back to finish off the tuning tour de force. Now that he's done, he's got the itch to move on to another project and is looking for best offer with about $100K as the ceiling. How much do kidneys go for these days? (Hat tip to Jo)

Update: The owner/builder of the car got in touch with us and in addition to providing a much better (and more bonkers) video of the car in action, informed us the car is currently not for sale following an engine rebuild... an engine rebuild that saw the thing get stroked and a bigger billet turbo get added which ended with a claimed grand total of 700 HP. We are not worthy.

Source: http://jalopnik.com/5554704/550hp-turbocharged-supercharged-wide+body-lotus-exige-any-questions

 

[Neal]

Good lord, that's brilliant...unhinged but still brilliant. At first I thought it was going to be about the Hennessey but obviously the idea of a mental Elise has struck a few people.

Here's the video of it, shame there's music over it

[youtubehd]mLquA-ot-vQ[/youtubehd]

 

[bloodstriker]

*jaw drops* *re-attaches it to face* *changes pants*

Words fail to describe this feeling

 

[Blitz187]

I had the same reaction when I saw it... Im going to add that its NOT the Hennessey in the title.. .👍

 

[Dan_]

Do want......

Seriously, that is just unbelievable.

 

[Jay]

Would love to see a musicless (or very low music) version of that video.

 

[Blitz187]

Hopefully a few new videos will come out since the article said there's recently been an engine rebuild to get it to 700 HP...

 

[G.T]

Looks like it has crazy traction exiting corners...

 

[Neal]

Found some more stuff...Hennessey who?

Skip to 1:50ish if you get bored

 

[Dave A]

Wow, I think I'm most impressed with the grip it seems to have. He's done a seemingly remarkable job with the car. the worst things about it are those orange wheels.

 

[Mr. Apex]

Nice. Now put someone behind the wheel who can drive. 👎

 

[chepe371]

Goddamit, Now i want this in GT5.

 

[exigeracer]

Head up to Mulholland and you've got a good chance of running into Frank and his car. Prickly character from what I've heard, but he can put together a seriously mean car. I hope he sticks with Lotus after he's done with this one. I don't visit his forum, but his previous projects included MR-S, so maybe he'll take on a Toyota powerplant in a Lotus again.

I also preferred the styling from a couple years ago of the same car:

Also, I'd contest that "baddest Elise on the planet" claim. It certainly is an amazing accomplishment, but there are many other considerable project cars in existence, from grassroots through to race teams (as well as Lotus themselves building some extremely competent racers).

 

[Ollie1066]

Absolutely incredible, anybody else think the rear of the first one looks a lot like a 458 Italia?

 

[hemisport15]

Not to be a buzz killington, but this thing has been around for a while. I think I actually posted the same exact pictures in another thread.
Regardless of all of that, I still don't mind seeing this animal more than once... absolutely love it.

 

[Cano]

Head up to Mulholland and you've got a good chance of running into Frank and his car. Prickly character from what I've heard, but he can put together a seriously mean car.

GOT DANG he really runs Mullholland in that thing? Like, running Mullholland street-race, outlaw, 70s style? That's gotta be a sight to see. I've been reading alot about Mullholland lately and it sure is awesome how they've been running this "racetrack on the streets" for 50 years, but I rreckon many people said you couldn't do it anymore... at least not like it was in the 70s or 80s, because people and traffic and police are so heavy now. I'd sure like to see that thing go in Mullholland. Are those ids up there in Mullholland? It sure seems so.

 

[sumbrownkid]

I'm still picking Hennessey's Elise over this guy. Something about a Corvette motor in the back trumps just about everything at the moment.

But this elise looks sick with the widebody.

 

[EA11R]

Hey, I know that road! Spunky canyon was like 5 miles away from my old house, and I had no clue it could be traversed in any less than five minutes. and he was STILL driving really gently.

Though, in his defense, I'm pretty sure any fast car could create a Laguna Seca corkscrew-style scenario: go over the bump slightly too fast and you lose the ability to brake. And now you're in a bush. I did that! slightly...

 

[Cano]

found it pretty much by accident in an European Car feature on their website, incredible car. And I love the orange wheels.

http://www.europeancarweb.com/features/epcp_1007_2005_lotus_elise/index.html

 

[kikie]

Wow, I think I'm most impressed with the grip it seems to have. He's done a seemingly remarkable job with the car. the worst things about it are those orange wheels.

But they do stand out.

Nice. Now put someone behind the wheel who can drive. 👎

He can. Look at his steering wheel handling technique. He's using the 'pulling technique' instead of the 'pushing technique'. As far as I remember, the pulling technique is a French technique.

 

[Alex.]

Whereabouts on Mulholland can I find it? I'll be in Hollywood in September

 

[Flerbizky]

That car is so full of Epic Win it's not even funny...

If you'll excuse me, I need to go to the little boys room..

 

[Danoff]

Good lord, that's brilliant...unhinged but still brilliant. At first I thought it was going to be about the Hennessey but obviously the idea of a mental Elise has struck a few people.

Here's the video of it, shame there's music over it

[youtubehd]mLquA-ot-vQ[/youtubehd]

That's little T! My favorite driving road. I live about 15 miles away from that. What I do when I get to where he is at the end of the video is turn around and do it all over again. By the end I'm sweaty, sore, and about ready to puke. But damn it's a good time.

 

[Duke]

That's little T! My favorite driving road. I live about 15 miles away from that. What I do when I get to where he is at the end of the video is turn around and do it all over again. By the end I'm sweaty, sore, and about ready to puke. But damn it's a good time.

Man, any road like that east of the Mississippi would have had 400 cars on it in that 8-minute run. I can't believe he didn't catch up to anybody the whole trip, and he only passed about 6 vehicles going the other way.

Around here, I'd count myself lucky to get 45 seconds of clear road like that.

 

[Danoff]

It's a very well kept secret out here. Nobody uses that road to actually travel anywhere, it's almost entirely people out joyriding (and no cops). I see nothing by fast cars and fast motorcycles on it. That being said, occasionally I've reeled in a motorcycle. Kinda odd to make a motorcycle pull off to let you by.

 

[Keef]

It's a very well kept secret out here. Nobody uses that road to actually travel anywhere, it's almost entirely people out joyriding (and no cops). I see nothing by fast cars and fast motorcycles on it. That being said, occasionally I've reeled in a motorcycle. Kinda odd to make a motorcycle pull off to let you by.

Sounds like a road trip lol. Got a map?

 

[Danoff]

If any of you guys want to come out to LA, I'll show you where it is.

 

[Neal]

It's a very well kept secret out here. Nobody uses that road to actually travel anywhere, it's almost entirely people out joyriding (and no cops). I see nothing by fast cars and fast motorcycles on it. That being said, occasionally I've reeled in a motorcycle. Kinda odd to make a motorcycle pull off to let you by.

Nice, you are indeed very lucky 👍 There are many amazing roads in the UK but they're are often so busy you don't get a decent flow. Even when I still had my motorbike and could overtake easily there were many days when it was hardly worth it as you would end up behind another "Sunday driver" before the next corner. Not sure what it's like in the US but overtaking in a car here seems to be as socially unacceptable as drink driving! What's wrong with letting someone past who happens to be travelling quicker then you

 

[Tornado]

Man, any road like that east of the Mississippi would have had 400 cars on it in that 8-minute run. I can't believe he didn't catch up to anybody the whole trip, and he only passed about 6 vehicles going the other way.

Oh, there are places. I've driven on one mere minutes outside of Baltimore that was about 10 minutes of no other cars whatsoever, even though I was driving on it at around 5 PM.