Beauty is not always purely a matter of the aesthetic. To those more technically minded (as are several of our editors—Csere, VanderWerp, you know who you are), beauty can be a more cerebral, associative, objective factor. Although the eensy, insectile Lotus Elise and the skeletal Ariel Atom are not necessarily beautiful in the traditional sense, the fact that they weigh next to nothing yet offer more power than many sport-utilities can make a math-minded car enthusiast drool at the sight of their unconventional bodies like Pavlov’s dogs in a bell factory. We’re talking 0 to 60 mph in 4.5 seconds for the 2000-pound Elise and three seconds flat in the 1400-pound, 245-hp Atom (a 300-hp model is also available). You don’t have to be a spreadsheet to get turned on by that.
