Hip high and weighing just six pounds more than a ton of feathers, the Elise SC is by far the lightest sports car available from a major manufacturer (other than the standard Elise) and makes two-seat convertibles like the Mazda Miata and Porsche Boxster look like SUVs in comparison. Despite the on-paper similarity with the Exige S, this is no mere engine swap – this is an all new, non-inter-cooled installation applied to the current Elise’s 1.8-liter 2-ZZ VVTL-i engine. The Lotus-designed, Magnuson-produced supercharger uses a smaller Eaton rotor pack (an M45 unit) than that of the current Exige S, and is married to the intake manifold plenum as part of a single-piece casting. Combined with the absence of an inter-cooler and its associated pipework, this integrated supercharger/intake assembly contributes to an 8kg reduction in engine weight compared with the Exige S.

Car-makers sometimes make outlandish claims about their products, and in the briefing Lotus held before letting us loose on the mountain roads outside of Pala, Calif., the engineer on hand tossed us a dozy. Not only did he explain that the seats were anatomically designed to position you so that your skeleton carries more of your body’s weight, rather than the muscle and fat of your backside, but that the result of this is better blood circulation delivering more oxygen to your brain which can increase your concentration.