Hennessey Shows us Just How Fast the 1,244hp Venom GT is with New Videos

Shoehorning a 638hp Corvette ZR1-sourced, 6.2-liter supercharged LS9 V8 into a lightweight Lotus Elise is in itself, insane, but choosing to swap the stock supercharger for twin ball bearing turbochargers that push output to 1,244 horsepower takes craziness to a completely different level.

The car featuring this mind-blowing setup is Hennessey Performance's Venom GT and it's as fast as its specifications suggest.

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DRB-Hicom Declines Offer for Lotus, VW Reportedly Interested in Parent Company Proton

Last week, Reuters reported that the ever-expanding Volkswagen Group is considering to place a new bid for Proton, which owns the Lotus brand, some five years after the Germans failed to form a tie up with the Malaysian carmaker as it seeks to extend its reach in the southeast Asian markets.

Today, DRB-Hicom, which acquired a 42.7 percent stake in Proton earlier this year, said that it had received an offer from an unnamed foreign company to buy Lotus for £1 (US$1.6 / €1.3) and take over the British company's debts that amount to more than £200 million (US$311 million / €257 million).

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Lotus Appoints Mansory as its Official Customization Partner, First Models to Appear at Paris Motor Show

At the 2011 Geneva Motor Show, Lotus displayed a concept version of the Evora coupe developed in collaboration with Mansory.

The German tuning house also worked on the Evora GTE and other special Lotus versions such as the carbon fiber-bodied Evora GTE that was unveiled last month in Geneva.

Today, Lotus announced that from now on, Mansory will be its official customization studio. The German company will work closely with Lotus’ engineers on special editions of the Elise, the Exige and the Evora and the first samples of this collaboration will appear at the Paris Motor Show in September.

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PG Elektrus is a $312k Pure Electric Lotus Elise with a Carbon-Fiber Body

Production of the Tesla Roadster may have ended but the pure-electric roadster model from Silicon Valley showed the way to other companies – and we mean that in the literal sense, as the PG Elektrus is an all too similar proposal.

Created by German manufacturer PG and Düsseldorf-based automobile designer Michael Fröhlich, the roadster model is once again based on the Lotus Elise and features an electric motor powered by a lithium-ion battery.

However, the Germans went one-step further and dressed the body in a carbon fiber suite to reduce the car's weight. Another highlight is the solar panel mounted behind the driver that collects the sun's energy and converts it into electricity to power up the batteries – or so the company claims.

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