We don’t often feature replicas here on Silodrome, unless they’re something special, or wildly unusual. This car is a combination of both. It’s a Porsche 356 replica based on a Lotus Elise chassis, and it’s powered by a highly-modified Honda K24 engine now producing 550 bhp.
While we can’t say definitively, it does appear that this is the only car with this spec sheet ever built, and the owner notes that while it’s mostly done, it does still need a few minor things fettled – like the fitment of the window glass, the rear screen, and the engine cover.
Fast Facts: A Lotus-Based Porsche 356 Outlaw Replica
- This one-off build combines a replica Porsche 356 Outlaw body with a Series 1 Lotus Elise Sport 160 chassis. Power comes from a turbocharged Honda K24 2.4 liter inline-four reportedly producing 550 bhp. The car is largely complete but still requires final fitment of glass, rear screen, and engine cover and some other jobs before road use.
- The Elise foundation traces to the mid-1990s, developed by Richard Rackham, Matt Becker, and Julian Thomson during one of many financially constrained periods for Lotus. Its bonded extruded aluminum tub weighed about 68 kg or 150 lbs, contributing to a total curb weight near 725 kg or 1,598 lbs in early Series 1 form.
- Lotus developed the Elise around suspension precision and chassis rigidity. The aluminum tub integrated front and rear substructures and featured an integrated roll-over structure. Across three generations from 1996 to 2021, more than 35,000 examples were produced, establishing its status as a benchmark lightweight sports car in the UK and around the world.
- This build retains the Elise wiring loom and fuel system architecture, easing serviceability somewhat. Upgrades include refurbished wishbones, uprated toe links, new rotors, braided brake lines, Ferodo pads, Quantum dampers and springs, and a strengthened anti-roll bar. The rebuilt K24 runs i-VTEC, DOHC, four valves per cylinder, EFI, and a Wavetrac limited-slip transmission.
History Speedrun: The Lotus Elise Chassis
When the Lotus Elise was being developed by a small team of Brits in the mid-1990s, no one could have guessed just how important the final design would be, or just how well the car would sell – it became the best-selling vehicle in Lotus history up until that point in time.
When the Lotus Elise was being developed by a small team of Brits in the mid-1990s, no one could have guessed just how important the final design would be, or just how well the car would sell – it became the best-selling vehicle in Lotus history. Image courtesy of Lotus.
The development team consisted of Richard Rackham (chassis design engineer), Matt Becker (development engineer) and Julian Thomson (head of design), each running their own small division.
Lotus wasn’t in a good place financially at the time, and so the budget was tight – so tight in fact that when Thomson was later working at Volkswagen, he noted that the development budget for a headlight design was higher than the development budget for the entire Elise project.
The Elise is one of those rare production cars that came together so well that it became an icon in its own time, and it set a completely new standard for production sports cars that few others (if any) have ever matched.
One of the key engineering innovations was the chassis. Lotus has always been a chassis and suspension engineering specialist, having developed some of the best-handling sports cars in history and inspired countless others (like the Elan-influenced Miata).
The chassis that underpinned the Elise was an extruded, bonded aluminum tub, with the suspension integrated front and rear, and there was an integrated roll bar for additional safety. This unusual aluminum frame proved to be exceptionally strong and impervious to rust, it was also incredibly light weight at 150 lbs or 68 kgs – the whole car tipped the scales at just 1,598 lbs or 725 kgs.
The Elise would sell over three generations between 1996 and 2021 with over 35,000 made. Many still consider it one of the best and purest sports cars of the modern age, and their popularity on the secondhand market has helped keep prices relatively high compared to their competition.
The Lotus Elise’s aluminum frame proved to be exceptionally strong and impervious to rust, it was also incredibly light weight at 150 lbs or 68 kgs – the whole car tipped the scales at just 1,598 lbs or 725 kgs. Image courtesy of Lotus.
The Elise-Based Porsche 356 Outlaw Replica Shown Here
The highly-unusual car you see here is based on a Series 1 Lotus Elise chassis, the Sport 160 variant, and the chassis is listed as being standard and undamaged.
The car has reportedly been treated to a full wishbone refurbishment, uprated toe links, new brake rotors all round, new bearings and joints, braided brake lines, Ferodo brake pads, Quantum race-spec shock absorbers and springs, and an uprated anti-roll bar.
The engine is a Honda K24 unit, a 2.4 liter inline-four with i-VTEC, double overhead cams, four-valves per cylinder, roller rockers, a coil-on-plug, distributorless ignition system, and electronic fuel injection. It has reportedly been fully rebuilt and is now turbocharged, it’s paired with an LSD Wavetrac gearbox, and it’s said to be good for 550 bhp.
The body is a replica Porsche 356 unit with full plastic wheel arch liners/dirt shields, billet alloy hinges and handles, leather clubman seats and rails, and the wiring loom and fuel tank is all Lotus Elise so everything is easy to follow with the original wiring diagram.
The body is a replica Porsche 356 unit with full plastic wheel arch liners/dirt shields, billet alloy hinges and handles, leather clubman seats and rails, and the wiring loom and fuel tank is all Lotus Elise so everything is easy to follow with the original wiring diagram.
The seller mentions that the car isn’t finished yet, and will need a few things done, including the fitment of the window glass, the rear screen, and the engine cover. It hardly needs saying that this is a highly unusual car, and there will doubtless be more jobs required to get it back on the road, but it’ll certainly attract plenty of attention at Cars & Coffee.
It’s now being offered for sale on eBay out of the UK with bidding underway at the time of writing. If you’d like to read more about it or toss in your own bid you can visit the listing here.
Images courtesy of eBay Seller
Articles that Ben Branch has written have been covered on CNN, Popular Mechanics, Smithsonian Magazine, Road & Track Magazine, the official Pinterest blog, the official eBay Motors blog, BuzzFeed, Autoweek Magazine, Wired Magazine, Autoblog, Gear Patrol, Jalopnik, The Verge, and many more.
Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with well over a million monthly readers from around the world and many hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.
