For the makers of sports cars, club racers have become one of those things that need to be part of the lineup, or else they risk losing sales to those companies that do offer them. If there was one sports car which might be exempt from this, it would be the Lotus Elise. Since the Elise is already about as stripped-out as any street car you're likely to ever see, there wouldn't be much left to strip out, and not much weight would be saved.

That didn't keep Lotus from trying though, and the total weight savings came to 52 pounds. Truthfully, it is pretty amazing that they found that much to strip off and we're told it mostly came from removing the noise insulation and from switching to a lighter-weight battery. 52 pounds might not sound like much, but if you think of it in terms of a percentage of the total weight of the car, it's pretty much in keeping with what gets shed from bigger cars. Look for the club racer to appear at the Geneva Auto Show.