April 15, Surrey, UK – This is not a sensible car. This is not a city car. This is not, by any traditional metric, a wise idea. Which is exactly why it might be one of the most fun looking things I’ve seen in years.
Say hello to Get Lost, a brand new name in automotive design, and meet their unhinged firstborn: Project Safari – a ground-up reimagining of the Lotus Elise S1, built not for the track, but for the kind of road that disappears into pine forests, mud ruts, and maybe a campsite with no signal and too many stars to count.
This thing isn’t modified. It’s reinterpreted. Reborn. Rethought from the axles up by a team that clearly asked one question, again and again: “What if we made the Elise feral?”
Get Lost is the brainchild of GFWilliams, a name I’ve followed for years thanks to his surreal ability to make cars look like living things in his photographs. But this isn’t a photo set. This is something you can touch, thrash, and maybe get a little lost in.
Project Safari is built around the idea of fun. Not speed-for-speed’s-sake, but the kind of fun where you pack a tent, leave the map, and pick the road with the worst surface just to see where it goes. And every inch of this thing looks like it’s been touched by someone who understands that impulse.
It’s got that sculpted roof scoop, like it’s sucking in adventure. Rectangular headlights that feel deliberate and a little wrong in the best way. It’s got that wide, planted stance that tells you it’s not afraid of potholes or rocky climbs. And the Elise bones are still there, underneath all the dirt-loving madness – but they’ve been sharpened, thickened, built up like scar tissue.
Inside? Totally redone. Tough but considered. It looks like a place I could live out of for a weekend. (I’m 5ft 2..) Or at least nap in after getting stuck trying to cross a river I shouldn’t have been near.
I haven’t driven the Project Safari. Not yet. (Please let me.) But I can feel it in my chest when I look at the thing. It reminds me of the hand built Fouqet Rivets so popular in the EU off road racing scene.
Every detail feels like it was imagined by people who’ve actually driven the backroads, who know that fun isn’t tidy. That the best routes aren’t on maps. That cars are meant to be felt through your teeth and fingertips.
This thing isn’t trying to please a crowd. It’s trying to find the handful of people who see it and feel that itch behind the ribs. Who don’t ask why an Elise? but why the hell not?
It’s not a lifted track car. It’s a provocation. A philosophy. An invitation to drive until the road ends, and then keep going.
Customer builds are set to begin later this year. Get Lost is accepting letters of interest—from buyers, collaborators, or fellow mischief-makers.
I don’t know about you. But I’m already packing the gear. If you get it, you get it.
If not? Well… get lost.
