If I tried really hard, I could get the cornering line to tighten when I lifted off in a fast corner, but it never threatened to spin. I would say the M100 Elan fulfilled its '90 per cent' brief, but it just wasn't that much fun to drive. Production stopped in 1992 then, curiously, restarted in 1994 with another 800 cars produced to use up surplus engine stock, these S2 versions slightly more interactive in their handling. And then it ended, again, as Lotus concentrated on the imminent, and extremely interactive, Elise which is still with us today.
Or did it end? What actually happened was that Lotus sold the rights to the Elan to a company then little known in Europe for anything beyond cheap superminis and curious 4x4s based on cast-off Mazda bits. That company was Kia, which put the Elan back into production minus all its GM bits. It was sold as, not surprisingly, the Kia Elan in South Korea, and also appeared in some other markets. One was brought over to the UK to test reactions, with a possible view to marketing it as, simply, the Kia Sports Car. The name would tie in neatly with the first version sold here of the Sportage 4x4.
I drove this Kia Sports car, its perfectly-cloned fibreglass bodywork painted bright yellow, its fit and finish actually better and more big-company than that of the Lotus had been, but aura rather strange in its mix of familiarity and aliennness. The switches and dials were all different, because the deal had been done on the basis that no GM parts would be used, and the car rode an inch or two higher than the Lotus to cope, we were told, with South Korea's rougher roads.
That damaged the dynamics considerably, and Kia's 1.8-litre, 151bhp, non-turbo engine lacked the fire of the Isuzu turbo. It was a reasonable sports car but that sense of elastic acceleration and of being sucked to the road had gone. Both could have been resuscitated for the European market, but in the end Kia decided there was no point in trying to launch here a car already perceived as obsolete.