The resultant body was lighter, stiffer, and provided better driver protection in the event of a crash. Still, a full understanding of the engineering qualities of fibreglass-reinforced plastic was still several years off and the suspension attachment points were regularly observed to pull out of the fibreglass structure. The weight savings allowed the Elite to achieve sports car like performance from a Coventry Climax FWE all-aluminium Inline-four engine while returning a fuel consumption of . All production Elites were powered by the FWE engine, except for one that was fitted with the newly developed Lotus-Ford Twin Cam engine. The FWE engine, derived from a water pump engine usually found bolted to a fire truck, was used by Lucas Electric for electrical component life testing in the presence of intense vibration.