Chassis overwhelms engine
The M100 Elan was retired after not even three years, its lack of Lotus’s usual handling sparkle (due to FWD) and the simultaneous arrival of the Mazda MX-5 having resulted in just 3855 sales. Some still mourned its loss, but they meant the 162bhp SE, not the 130bhp base car, in which the Isuzu four lacked a turbo. So obscure was this (139 sold) that our first drive was instead a post-mortem. “You can get as much driver involvement from a good video game,” we concluded. “That whirring is Colin Chapman turning in his grave.”