Highlights Iconic S3 Cup 250 Limited to 200 cars per year Striking Gulf Orange Five service stamps Factory hardtop Overview Quite rightly, the Lotus Elise is regarded as one of the best sports cars ever made – huge fun to drive and built to company founder Colin Chapman’s mantra of “Simplify, then add lightness”.

For many people, it was more than enough.

But even the best can be made even better, and the Elise S3 Cup 250 is the proof of the pudding.

Production was limited to 200 per year, but fewer than 200 were ever sold in the UK, suggesting that the production volumes may even have been lower – at the end of 2025, according to DVLA data, there were just 123 registered, so this is a very rare opportunity to buy an extremely special car.

Launched in 2016 as the fastest Elise ever, the Cup 250 was developed with an emphasis on weight-saving and motorsport-inspired engineering – perfect for track days, or those who wanted to have the most thrilling derivative of the iconic sports ca...