Lotus ended production of the Elise in 2022, but the aftermarket is still coming up with ways to reinvent the roadster. Japanese tuner Rocket Bunny has built one of the most extensively modified Elise models we’ve seen yet. It’s Subaru-powered, and it’s barely recognizable as an Elise.
Nearly every body panel has been redesigned, and we’re getting some serious classic endurance race car vibes from the styling. The front end is flatter and much lower than the Elise’s, the wheel arches are flared, and a massive chassis-mounted wing dominates the open rear end. The body ends right before the wing, offering a front-and-center view of the engine and racing slicks when you’re standing behind the Elise.
The biggest hint that this is a Lotus is the windshield frame, which is seemingly carried over unchanged. We can’t fathom the humongous amount of fabrication work that must’ve gone into this build; it’s light-years away from the wide-body kits that Rocket Bunny is primarily known for.
Stock, the Elise is powered by a Toyota-sourced four-cylinder engine. Rocket Bunny’s build was designed to use either a Subaru-sourced flat-four from the EJ family of engines or a rotary that presumably comes from the Mazda parts bin. There are other rotaries out there, but we can’t imagine anyone is going to go through the trouble of rebuilding an NSU Ro 80-sourced twin-rotor Wankel to stuff it in a time-attack car like this.
In its current configuration, this Lotus is running a 2.5-liter turbocharged EJ25 flat-four rated at 1,000 horsepower, which is jaw-dropping when you consider the weight-saving measures implemented during the project. How that figure was achieved hasn’t been revealed; the only technical detail released so far is that the drivetrain uses a Link ECU engine management system, but there’s a ton (and we mean a ton) of aftermarket support for Subaru’s venerable boxer. We’re betting there’s not a lot left in the engine that still carries a Subaru part number.
The list of modifications doesn’t end there. The front and rear subframes are modified units designed in-house, the interior features a single Recaro lightweight seat, and there’s a Wilwood Big Brake kit to keep the race car-like power-to-weight ratio in check. Rocket Bunny designed this Elise for time attack events and for Pikes Peak, so the 1,000-horsepower flat-four exhaust note might sooner or later echo through the Rockies.
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