The Tuned Lotus Elise Did Something No Other Sports Car Could

Picture the scene: It is the 2008 Geneva Motor Show. Swiss concept car company Rinspeed is revealing its latest creation, a bespoke Lotus Elise. But this was no ordinary Elise. No sirree. This creation may have started its life as a Lotus, but Rinspeed turned it into something completely different, and altogether more spectacular.

It was the Rinspeed sQuba, and it was not only an eco-friendly, electric-powered sports car, it was also a submarine. This is its story.

Add Lightness!

Colin Chapman, the man that founded Lotus, had a vision. Instead of going overboard on horsepower, Chapman’s racing cars focused more on weight and great handling. The result was often spectacular, with small and light Lotus racing cars beating big and powerful rivals more often than not.

He famously said about the design process behind his car: “Simplify, then add lightness.” Chapman passed away in 1982 but his legacy lived on in Lotus Cars’ design principles, with lightness being a core element in all its designs.

The erstwhile Lotus Elise, conceived in 1994 and the first model, rolled off the production line in 1996. It featured a bonded extruded aluminum chassis and a fiberglass body, and it weighed just 1,600 lb. The first-generation Elise’s Rover 1.8-liter four-cylinder engine made a seemingly woeful 118 hp.

But, thanks to its low weight, the little Lotus could sprint from 0-60 mph in less than six seconds. With its low center of gravity, handling was also from the top drawer.

The legend of the Elise had been born, and it would soon exact some humiliating blows to much bigger and more powerful cars on racetracks around the world.

Upping The Game

By 2000, new European crash regulations meant the first-generation Elise no longer complied with the legally required safety standards. Lotus was at a major crossroads… the company did not have the capital to develop a completely new Elise that would conform to the rules.

Enter General Motors. The company offered to fund the development of an all-new vehicle. In return, it wanted two of its own versions of the new car for its European markets, badged Opel and Vauxhall.

The new project featured a revised version of the original chassis, with the 118-hp 1.8-liter Rover engine still in the game. The new fiberglass body was the first Lotus to be designed on a computer, and it was an altogether more sleek and up-to-date design. The new Elise was slightly heavier but still weighed just 1,900 lbs.

By 2001, the Lotus Elise Series started rolling off the production line. The Opel Speedster and Vauxhall VX220 soon followed suit, albeit with a slightly longer chassis.

Esprit. Lotus Esprit.

Fast-forward to 2007. Rinspeed chief Frank Rinderknecht had, for 30 years, dreamed about creating a car that could ‘fly under the water’. This followed after Rinderknecht had seen the 1977 James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me. In the movie, Bond was driving a Lotus Esprit, and chased by a motorcycle, then a car and, finally, a helicopter.

In an effort to escape the helicopter’s machine gun, Bond dramatically launches the Esprit into the ocean. Submerged, Bond pressed a few buttons in the Esprit’s cabin and, voilà, it turned into a submarine, capable of firing rockety torpedoes of sorts (because, clearly, the bad guys had known his Lotus would turn into a submarine, so they had prepared an armada of underwater bad guys, attempting to, er, sink the Esprit).

As unlikely the scenario may have been, it captivated the young Rinderknecht. And he vowed to one day build his own car-oh-submarine, capable of ‘flying’ under the water. So, in 2007, he set to work, turning his long-time vision into a reality. He would turn a car into ‘a fish in the water’.

Watch the famous car (and submarine) chase scene, featuring Roger Moore as James Bond and a Lotus Esprit that turned into a submarine, here:

The Submarine Cometh!

Rinderknecht selected the lightweight Lotus Elise as the platform for his fishy car. It obviously required a comprehensive makeover to be able to ‘fly’ under the water. – Rinderknecht was determined that his creation would be able to operate like a submarine under the surface of the ocean. At the time, some submersible military vehicles sunk to the bottom, and then drove along the seabed.

An internal combustion engine would not suffice under the ocean’s surface, so Rinspeed’s engineers removed the Rover 1.8-liter engine. The shell was sent to Swiss engineering specialist Esoro, who turned the Elise’s fiberglass body, using carbon nano tubes, into a watertight machine that could dive under the water.

First, a 73 hp electric motor was installed in the space normally occupied by the ICE engine. This motor provided the propulsion for the vehicle on land, allowing it to sprint from 0-60 mph in about seven seconds, and reach a top speed of 75 mph. Two additional 800W electric motors drove two stern propellers, providing the propulsion in the water. For the record, it can do 3 mph on the surface of the water and up to 2 mph when submerged.

With propulsion sorted, Rinspeed added two 5 hp Seabob Rotinor bow jet drives on the front flanks, with special rotating louvers for opening and closing the water intake. The rotating outlet jets were manufactured from so-called carbon nano tubes, adding lightness and strength.

Six 48V lithium-ion rechargeable and waterproofed batteries supply the energy for the electric motors. Range is not quoted, but it would probably have been very limited – back in 2008 rechargeable lithium-ion technology was not of the same standard as today.

The Lotus body remained topless. Unlike the Esprit in the Bond movie, there was no fancy, sealed cabin with oxygen for the Rinspeed sQuba. Instead, passengers have to wear breathing apparatus, and the roof remains open for safety reasons. The interior is salt-proof, just in case you were planning an extended dive in the ocean.

The Strahle + Hess interior also features genuine mother-of-pearl trim (yep, that’s a thing) and diamond-plated, non-slip inlays from KGS Diamond, as used in high-tech abrasives. A high-tech VDO instrument cluster and controls add a bit of a Nautilus touch.

Sink Or Swim!

How do you go full submarine in the Rinspeed? It’s as easy as driving into the water. The sQuba is designed to float, so you can use it as an amphibious vehicle, too. The vehicle is able to reach up to 3 mph on the surface of the water thanks to the two propellers driven by small electric motors.

To go full submarine, you simply open the door or doors, water rushes in, the nose goes down, you activate those Seabob jet drives which are now underwater, and down you go. Mind, just remember to wear the underwater breathing apparatus and goggles which come with the car, otherwise that amazing submarine experience may turn into a bit of a drama.

How deep can you go? Well, about 33 feet. So you’ll definitely not be bothering the latest USS Iowa attack submarine anytime soon. But it is certainly deep enough to escape that pesky helicopter gunship.

On The Road Again

So you’ve gone swimming like a fish under the water in the sQuba. Now to head home. Since you will probably be somewhat parched after all the underwater action, the sQuba has a few more tricks to get you home safely.

Rinspeed partnered with Ibeo, a company specializing in laser scanner technology for automotive applications. In the sQuba, the driver simply needs to press a button, and the vehicle turns into a fully autonomous car. The advanced system offers a variety of driver assistance functions, such as automatic emergency braking, pedestrian protection, collision protection, traffic jam assistant, and more.

The Rinspeed, even with all the extra bits like propellers and jet drives, weighs only 2,000 lb. So, even with just the single electric motor providing propulsion on the road, performance is brisk, and handling is great. The sQuba comes standard with the Elise’s racecar-like double-wishbone suspension set-up, along with high-end KW Automotive springs and dampers.

With the electric motor’s 73 hp and 118 lb-ft of torque, the Rinspeed sQuba still offered Elise-like performance on the road. Probably not for very long, with limited range, but still.

Where Can I Get One?

As cool as it is, the Rinspeed sQuba never made it to production. Rinderknecht has said that although the sQuba is an ongoing project and development vehicle, the single example cost around $2-million to produce.

Scaling production would not only be unrealistically expensive, it would be virtually impossible to actually produce units that would conform to safety regulations. Pity that.

Sources: Lotus, Rinspeed