In Yoga, there's a cross-legged meditative asana known as the lotus position. In the car world there's also a Lotus position, which involves reaching for your wallet. Today's Elise might make you grab your cash, if that is its price doesn't make you assume another position.

You love the Lotus Elise, right? It's sort of like a Miata for people who appreciate performance by way of parsimony, and who haven't yet given up on the Brits as car builders.

We love the Elise too, and in fact Doug DeMuro recently regaled us with both th , and how .

Stock, the Elise is a wonderful car, melding cutting edge engineering with tried and true Toyota reliability for the really expensive bits. Oh sure there are trade-offs to be had, the cars are not as comfortable as your great granny's Cadillac, nor are they as adept at day-to-day duties as would be a Porsche Boxster or Schwinn 10-speed.

On the other hand, whooooooooooo-doggies are they all that and a bag of hips don't lie when it comes to doing just about anything involving either the steering wheel or the loud pedal. Of course, that doesn't mean that the Elsie can't offer even more.

This has been given more. How much more? Honda much more. Yep, this one has given its tried and true Toyota mill the heave-ho and in its place lies a Honda K24A2, late of a 50,000-mile Acura TSX. Now, that DOHC four is good for 205-bhp right out of the box. This however, isn't a box it's an Elise, and so along with the K24 it also has a blower to spice things up. Stock, this car would has rocked 189-horses, now, it's most likely a butt-load more.

More ponies in your corral can spell trouble if additional upgrades aren't also taken, and this car has those in spades. That starts with the 6-speed Honda gearbox, and radiates out to reworked suspension at all four corners, as well as upgraded brakes to keep the party in check.

The body has been left as it left the factory and is claimed in the ad to have the Sport Pack, and maybe the Touring pack. The Solar Yellow paint is still bright enough to get you noticed by the Po-Po, and the seller is nice enough to document a few places where wear and tear have left the plastic beneath show through. That may be the result of the track time evidenced by some of the ad's pics.

The interior seems equally up to the task, with the shift mechanism laid bare apparently so the Honda box can be shifted into reverse.

We're less interested in reverse as we are in moving forward, and while the seller of this 2-owner, 22K-mile Elise is planning on moving on without it, we now need to decide if the car - based on his comprehensive description - is worth the $39,000 he is asking for its purchase.

What do you think, does this Honda-fied Elise look to be worth $39,0000? Or, do the customizations make that a price you would never get back?

You decide!

Chicago (the car is in Milwaukee WI), or go if the ad disappears.

H/T to Owen for the hookup!

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