Welcome
          

Welcome to Type72.com, dedicated to the Lotus Elise and in particular the Heritage Edition Type72, inspired by the classic F1 cars designed and built by Lotus and sponsored by John Player Special. The JPS Lotus is undoubtedly one of the most recognisable F1 cars of all time, all of the F1 cars that carried these classic colour also carried famous drivers, Jochen Rindt, Ronnie Peterson, Emerson Fittipaldi, Mario Andretti and of course Ayrton Senna.
   
 
The Lotus Elise is unquestionably a motoring icon, pound for pound (£) arguably the best handling (practical) road cars in the world. The Julian Thompson and Richard Rackham designed Elise saved Lotus and was a huge gamble for the company when the mark 1 or Series 1 (S1) was released in June 1996. Thankfully the gamble paid off, the little 2 seater made an instant impact and significantly outstripped demand.
  
The anticipated production -v- the actual demand was one of the factor for the S1 having some build quality problems but most owners remain loyal to the brand and look upon these small problems as part of the ownership experience. In October 2000 the Series 2 (S2) Elise was launched with a completely reworked body and chassis, despite these significant changes the new Elise maintains the same fundamental handling and performance characteristics of the S1. Now, in 2005 there are numerous variants of the S1 & S2 and "sister" cars such as the Exige and 340R.
   

Lotus call the special editions cars Heritage Editions and are named after famous Lotus "Types". All Lotus cars have a Type designation, the Elise is the Type 111, the new Elan the Type M100, even the Lotus racing bike that won gold in the Barcelona Olympics had a type designation, the Type 108.

Some of the Elise Heritage Types are the Type 25, Type 23, Type 49, Type 99 and of course the Type 79 and the Type 72, the most famous of all Lotus F1 cars, sponsored by JPS.

The S1 Type 79 and the S2 Type 72 both sport the famous black and gold livery, most of the Type 79 Elises were exported to Italy therefore the Type 79 remains relatively rare in the UK, the Type 72 however sold predominantly in the UK market in both the "long tail" and "short tail" roof format. There are approximately 100 Type 72s in the UK with around 150 in total worldwide. As an owner of an S2 Type 72 I remain unashamedly bias when I say that the Type 72 is the best looking Elise, but that's just my opinion.

 
   
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