Tweedehands Lotus Elise

Colin Chapman built his first Lotus in a London lock-up in 1948 and spent the rest of his life removing weight from cars. Simplify, then add lightness, he said, and the philosophy won seven Formula 1 constructors' titles and produced the Seven, the Elan and the Esprit that drove underwater for James Bond.

The Elise of 1996 saved the company with a bonded aluminium tub and a kerb weight under 750 kg, and it, the Exige and the Evora kept Hethel building the purest driver's cars in the world for a quarter of a century while ownership passed through General Motors, Proton and finally Geely in 2017.

Today the Emira is the last petrol Lotus, and the electric Eletre SUV and Emeya saloon, built in Wuhan, carry the brand into a very different future. Whether a two-tonne electric SUV can be a Lotus is a fair question. The Emira's steering remains the best answer to it.