ANALOGUE SUPERSPORT

Lotus Elise specialist uprates 1990s icon with an eye on track days

- MATT SAUNDERS

You can understand why it happens. You've been developing an extra-special sports car restomod, resplendent with engine and suspension componentry exotic enough to salivate over. Countless workshop man-hours will be poured into the painstaking renovation of every example.

And then, one day, you realise what you're going to have to charge for it. The value is plain to see but, oily and rubbery bits notwithstanding, how do you make a 25-year-old sports car that can be acquired cheaply enough to be worth restomodding in the first place suddenly seem like it's worth spending a six-figure sum on?

The convention is to attach a big industry name to it, bringing instant interest and credibility. But not that for Steffen Dobke, proprietor of West Sussex-based Analogue Automotive - a former service specialist for the original Series 1 Lotus Elise and the recent creator of the Analogue Automotive Supersport. Never heard of Dobke? Maybe that's precisely the point.

Because the Supersport certainly isn't the kind of car that needs a leg-up or to hang from the coat-tails of a bigger reputation. If you live in the south of England and have owned an S1 Elise, there's a good chance that you will know Analogue. But even if you don't, it will take you mere minutes - one run up through the manic rev band at most - to realise just how extensive and wide-ranging a transformation of a 1990s motoring icon the Supersport represents.