A good thrape in an Elise rewards without punishing you; it glides where other cars crash and bang, and you steer it with your fingertips. It's a delicate performer. Unless, that is, you're prepared to forgo the niceties of Lotus's masterful ride/handling compromise and seek out its ultimate potential. Do that and you get an addictive, hard-edged mini-supercar that sniffs out road imperfections and beats them into submission. Grip grows to enormous levels at the expense of effortless agility and your sympathetic steering inputs begin to morph into aggressive jabs at the wheel.

This isn't the kind of experience on which Lotus has built its reputation, but nevertheless the demand is there. This Elise, the special edition 135R, is intended to satisfy customers who seek extreme thrills on both road and track and are quite happy to sacrifice ride comfort for cornering g. It's an Elise for those who fancy a Sport 190 but think that ΂£40K is getting a little silly for Norfolk's finest. Even so, at ΂£27,495 you'd hardly call it a bargain.

So, what do you get for the cash? Well for starters there's the 135bhp engine upgrade. Modified porting of the heads, a cast alloy intake manifold (shared with the 156bhp 111S) and a reprogrammed ECU liberate the extra 15bhp. It doesn't sound much but the figures don't quite convey the added muscularity of the engine. Subjectively it feels more urgent than the more powerful but peakier 111S that we're running on our Fast Fleet (not that we get to drive it much as Fraser always leaves it at home). Our test car (supplied by Nick Whale Sportscars) had the optional sports exhaust and we'd recommend it highly; the rather thin, bland note of the standard system is at odds with the hard-charging nature of the 135R.
But it's not just the engine that differentiates this Elise from all but its most extreme sibling. To get a handle on this car's character you have to look to its uncompromising chassis set-up. The standard Bilstein dampers have been recalibrated to give stiffer bump and rebound settings; there are stiffer, platform-adjustable springs and an iron-fisted 'Motorsport' adjustable anti-roll bar at the front. Gorgeous OZ Racing alloys shod with super-soft Yokohama AO48s complete the comprehensive toughening-up of the Elise.

In practice this all adds up to an incredibly physical driving experience. The tyres generate massive grip in the dry and seem to get better and better the more you lean on them. They don't do the directional stability much good, though. Typically imperfect British roads that a standard Elise would attack in a clinical, unfussed manner have the 135R weaving and bobbing like a prizefighter. It seems intent on exploring every piece of scarred tarmac and occasionally you feel like you're hanging on rather than actually steering. Past experience of the track-biased AO48s suggests that wet-road driving would be a nervy, angst-ridden, ultimately unfulfilling tussle.

Fortunately it's dry and clear when I'm out in the 135R. I'm being bashed around, my arms are beginning to burn with the effort as those cornering forces build and the fantastic-looking but unyielding seats are threatening to break my back as the road scurries under the unflinching wheels; but I'm smiling. Laughing out loud on occasion. This 135R, like every Elise I've driven, is capable of creating a soaring high that few cars can match. Yet it's a curiously different hit than you get with the standard car or the 111S.

On the road you're unlikely to breach its phenomenal grip. It will understeer gently but if you've got any notions of power-oversteer forget it - 135bhp isn't enough to trouble those Yokos and if you get it sliding through a fast corner (for which read very fast) then heaven help you. It's best left for the track.

And that's the crux of the issue. The 135R needs a racetrack to reveal its true character and towering ability. On the road it delivers its best maybe 10 per cent of the time. For some people that may not be enough. Besides, there's another car out there that's nearly as thrilling at its best but has 200bhp and an accessible, exploitable chassis. Whisper it... it wears a Vauxhall badge.