The original Lotus Elise is great. Sure, you might have to have two of your ribs removed to get in and out of it, and collision repair is heinously expensive, but it’s a riot. An ultra-lightweight two-seater from arguably the start of the last great era of analog driver’s cars. However, it’s not the sort of car designed for questionable terrain, but now there’s a solution. This is the Get Lost Project Safari, and it seems like a distilled essence of off-road sports car.
Get Lost is the brainchild of world-renowned automotive photographer GF Williams, a Lotus aficionado and one skilled operator behind the lens. At first glance, it makes a ton of sense. Sports cars offer a great form factor for the city because they’re small and nimble, but city roads are awful. From Los Angeles to Toronto to London, poorly patched-up stretches of pavement will rattle your fillings in anything track-focused, and that’s before we get into the deterioration of scarcely maintained backroads.
To fight back against potholes, the Get Lost Project Safari features an extra 3.9 inches of ride height thanks to all-terrain tires and new suspension that’s said to keep the responsiveness you’d expect from an Elise while adding compliance. Of course, those big all-terrains have resulted in some clamshell modifications, and the result is pretty dang neat. Check out the spare tire mounted in the rear deck.
Another party piece is an enormous roof scoop, so induction noise should come from directly over your head. As for the engine, it’s reportedly a new powertrain, although details are scarce. Still, something like a Toyota 2ZZ-GE or Honda K20 would be a huge upgrade over the original Rover K series engine, which was known for head gasket issues. Also on tap, a limited-slip differential to really put the power down on dusty corner exits, a hydraulic handbrake for fun, and rally lights to cut through the indigo of twilight. Really, the most controversial thing here is the headlights, which go slim and rectangular in round recesses, with the otherwise empty space filled with Miura-style eyelashes.
Despite all the alterations, one key thing remains essentially unchanged: the stiff, ultra-light extruded and bonded aluminum chassis. Even if you lift an Elise up on big tires, you’ll benefit from its construction regardless of which surface you’re on, and the exposed structure in the cabin still looks artful.
Best of all, if you want your own lifted Elise, you can have one built. Get Lost is now fielding deposits for the Project Safari, with builds starting later this year. Pricing hasn’t been announced and I doubt it’ll be cheap, but this thing looks like six figures’ worth of fun.
Top graphic credit: Get Lost
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(nhrn)
I’d drive that for free.
I drive all over the country for work, and am from New England where we know a thing or two about bad roads. Never have I felt the need for anything more than a regular car with tires that AREN’T rubber bands stretched around dubs. And paying attention to the road in front of me, which of course means NOT being right up the ass of the car in front of me in traffic. If the roads are THAT bad, then that is what trucks/proper NOT car-based SUVs are designed for.
This is a Lotus ruined, and Colin Chapman is whirling in his grave like an F5 tornado.
If it had been closer to a rally prepped stratos I’d like it much more, but it’s not terrible. I just don’t think it’s quite rock crawler material as photographed.
It needs a small, lightweight, turbodiesel, such as an OM606. With mechanical injection, the possible fuel sources you can run it on greatly expand.
An expensive car designed by a photographer? Not if my man berries were in a vise.
I’m gonna be a stick in the mud and say that I really, fundamentally, dislike this. The safari trend is beyond tired, anyway, but I can think of no worse vehicle to make into an offroader than an Elise. They’re not exactly the most rigid, bulletproof vehicles ever made. Lightweight, nimble, and fast, yes, but they’re just completely and utterly wrong for this purpose. If you want to do a tube frame thing and stick an Elise body on it or whatever, then yes, but this is just nonsense.
I am right there with you. This is naff. I imagine the half-life of an Elise body subjected to anything other than normal pavement is measured in minutes.
Rover K series engines didn’t have a particularly deficient head gasket design; it was more that nearly every implementation of it had some weird quirk or twelve in the cooling system that made overheating a problem. It was a pretty innovative engine and made good power and torque for the time.
Source: head gasket number 5 and one skim away from a new head…
These cars are way too fragile for this to be anything more than appearance and will definitely need more power to not lose performance from the larger tires, maybe a stronger transmission. I never was one for fads.
It gives off a Stratos vibe which I find I like.
Off-rotus sounds like something that can go wrong with your balls when you get past a certain age. “I’ve got the off-rotus so now I have to wear this special underwear.”
Sidewall = no
This is pure silliness and I love it.
So if there are all these Lotus Elise’s that are totaled because of cracked clams, where is the thriving aftermarket in rebody kits? Say a kit to look like a Fiero or something.
I love it! A body kit to make a Ferrari 308 look like a Fiero would be absolutely epic.
The highest selling price of a 1975 Lancia Stratos HF at auction over the last three years was $692,500
I need stupid money, and I need this!