Re: Saw a "Lotus" on the way home today
I've got both a N/A Crossfire and an Elise; I'll take a picture of the two together tomorrow.
The Elise is a much more pure-bred sports car, obviously. The Elise has a harsher ride, is loud as hell, on the ground, and hard to get into and out of. They're also handmade, which sounds fancy and exotic on the surface but really means that each individual car has its own set of odd squeaks, rattles, body panel gaps, and assembly issues. No creature comforts like heated seats, a fancy heater re-circulation system, or much cargo space either.
The Crossfire, even with SRT6 springs and my Koni shocks adjusted for stiffness feels like a vaguely-captained boat in comparison to the Elise, and that's saying something as the Crossfire isn't particularly large and for a 2000's era car isn't even altogether that overweight.
What's interesting is that while the stock Elise is decently faster than the N/A Crossfire, the Crossfire's torque means that the Crossfire smacks you back in the seat a lot harder. The Crossfire also tries harder to make a show if you hammer the gas. The stock Elise has very limited torque and doesn't come into its power until 6300rpm while even my N/A Crossfire is ready to light up the tires almost anytime. Two dramatically different driving experiences for sure.
Weirdly the Elise is actually a more comfortable ride for me once I finagle my way into it. I'm 6'1" and I find that the limited headroom and visibility in the Crossfire leaves me leaning around in sometimes-painful ways while I drive, while the Elise puts the seats on the ground and gives me more space to work with. I've seen the Crossfire mod where people cut the seat mount welds and bolt the seats straight to the pan for more headroom, but it's a bit too extreme for me.
Overall they're both great cars in my book. The N/A Crossfire is a wonderful deal for a decently finished, comfortable, sporty entry-luxury car with a torquey evil side while the Elise is a bizarre, exotic high-revving streetworthy track weapon that's almost guaranteed to retain its value.