2008 Lotus Elise Road Test Ratings

The Elise's race-car-for-the-street design offers performance at the expense of comfort.

Excellent handling, brakes, and steering. An available supercharged engine makes things entertaining and pushes this rating close to a "10."

The Elise rides hard, has a tight interior with a small driver's footwell, is hard to get in and out of and has a metallic interior. All of these stem from the Elise's race-car-for-the-street design concept.

The interior is stripped down to the bare essentials, but functional. Many controls, such as the push button headlights and odd engine start sequence take some getting used to.

The design, both inside and out, is tremendous. Build quality, on the other hand, shows the down-side of its low-volume, hand-built production.