Lotus To Be Offloaded by Proton?

[RTH]

Suspect we may hear of some very big shake ups in the next few months.

[Frimley111R]

PH Story: Key words from the first line:

Recent chatter suggests
Lotus could be
if the Malaysian government sells
new hands at the tiller could

[Frimley111R]

doggydave said:

fatbutt said:

Cheap cars are a product of volume sales. If you all want Lotus to build a cheap sports car then Lotus need to sell to the masses, which means a heavily compromised car. Either that or accept that Lotus will be a small volume, small scale operation i.e. Ginetta sized.

Given who Dany B has employed and the investment he's gathered I seriously doubt Lotus has 'small scale' in its plans.

The cars will be expensive, 'targeted' and marketed.

Wasn't the OP more about the financial market getting gittery? Personnally, I think its a case of the emperors new clothes - at last this absurd plan of Bahar's is being seen through.

Too many new cars. Pissing on the Chapman legacy. Losing track of the 'purpose' of Lotus and where it fits into the specialist car buyers mindset. Its a bloody poor strategy and deserves derision.

I like Lotus, its a very special company both historically and technically. It takes a unique singular vision to keep something like Lotus alive and some wiz kid from Ferrari's marketting machine is not it.

Edited by fatbutt on Friday 30th December 15:50

Says it all really.

Pair of dinosaurs.

[Toffer]

No profit for years and perhaps a prospect of profit in 2014...if you put 500 million more in.

[clanger]

That'll make 3 dinosaurs then as I too sign up to this assessment...

IF Lotus gets sold DB will have to convince someone else to invest in his cunning plan

[sprinter1050]

pagani1 said:

Lotus would be a great fit for JLR if Mr Tata is interested or for Mr Fernandes of Caterham either one could fund the great new rebirth of Lotus as currently planned.

Hmmmm A Jaguar Lotus... or would it have to be a Lotus Jaguar ? There's only one way to find out...no no I won't do that stuff..

Anyway, why do Malaysians have names that sound like knicker elastic snapping ??

article said:

Two Kuala Lumpur investment analysts, Gan Eng Peng of Hwang

[forzaminardi]

There's no way they'll make a profit in 2014. The plan was optimistic in the first place, but the timescale promulgated makes it completely unrealistic. There's no tangible sign that the new product is anyway near complete, and they'll have to sell bucketloads - which they have neither the manufacturing or retail capacity for - to recoup the investment in one year.

[otolith]

sprinter1050 said:

or would it have to be a Lotus Jaguar ?

If that ever happened, it would be a journalistic travesty if the resulting car didn't have a really big old turbo on it.

[toon10]

Dave Hedgehog said:

too much nostalgia for lotus, the elan was nice, the esprit too complicated and unreliable, the elise is just an ugly slow bathtub for hairdressers, the exige is about passable if your a midget and can actually get in one and the new stuff is silly money, so you may as well get the better porker option

Since when was an Elise ugly? Oh and most hairdressers I know are gay men or women. The Elise is too hardcore a machine to attract the skilled with scissors type.

[Tuna]

All I see here is two years into a five year plan and people are disappointed that Lotus aren't out-selling Porsche.

It doesn't work like that.

And how anyone can whinge that new product is not visible yet when it never was suggested it would be, when Lotus have shown that all their development work is producing results, and they're still finding time to evolve the existing cars is beyond me.

[Numeric]

I was concerned to see the very dynammic model plans from Lotus. The first issue is how do you build cars that seek to move into a more "mass" market of being daily drivers well, and as for doing a saloon - incredibly hard. One of the oddities has always been that doing low rate sports cars is relatively cheap - simpler engineering and forgiving enthusiast customers. Once a car requires the level of reliability and quality to be used by the likes of my sister (she'll be buried in a convertible Merc I reckon) the level of thoroughness beggars belief. These customers don't forgive, they scream and shout and you end up on Watchdog. You can burn a hundred million development just on some lighting and a bit of glass!
The second is when companies are in a bit of trouble they have a habit of releasing amazing long term plans that Auto Journos have a very bad habit of not examining for realism based on the companies financial background. Those with long memories will know MGR had promised a range of great cars in the press though they weren't realistically in the business plans - and SAAB seemingly did the same. I'm sure this isn't the case here with Lotus but it is a common way for the company to persuade new buyers of the cars or the company they are viable and secure.

[sprinter1050]

otolith said:

If that ever happened, it would be a journalistic travesty if the resulting car didn't have a really big old turbo on it.

Of course you only have to think how the "Lotus" tag transformed a Vauxhall Carlton !!

[marshalla]

I said, on at least one other thread about the Lotus F1 naming row, that I though there was more to the agreement than met the eye. I stand by that. My theory is that there is some "face saving" going on behind the scenes in Malaysia which will result in some interesting moves.

[donna180]

The Hypno-Toad said:

There have been rumours over the Xmas week on other sites that VAG group have already expressed an interest. Whoever it is they will have to work hard to repair the brands image, which has taken a knock recently under Mr Behr's stewardship. Long term I think Lotus will be fine but five cars registered in September, three from one dealer doesn't bode well.

But if a dutchman with wavey hair, a blue blazer and a 'business plan' comes knocking for gawds sake Lotus don't let him in!

You do have to look at Worldwide sales - granted UK sales are poor but everyone's deleveraging.....

The new MY12 Evora looks good - big improvement over the launch models... New Exige /New Supercharged Elise...

Will be a shame if the new Esprit is delayed.

[OlberJ]

donna180 said:

You do have to look at Worldwide sales - granted UK sales are poor but everyone's deleveraging.....

Anyone know what the worldwide sales are for Lotus?

[Ved]

OlberJ said:

Anyone know what the worldwide sales are for Lotus?

I'd be interested to know this too. The problem Lotus has is that they are a very niche player with a very long and very bad reputation for quality and worst of all, there are better cars for the money - not that anyone has any.

A 2nd-hand S1 would be a great way to spend 8k. A new one would be a 25 to 30k toy and in today's world it's a very tight market.

I hope they stick around but unless a very big company steps in they'll be gone and models sold off.

A lotus tuned, and badged, saloon or hatchback from a solid manufacturer would go a long way to helping their image a bit more. Supercars and sports cars are great and I admire them for thinking big but perhaps being more realistic might be a thought too.

[Liquid Knight]

They've turned down my offer of £10 as a sybolic geature. Where's an excentric Russian Billionaire when you need one?

[RTH]

Hopefully Lotus might find someone a bit more Walter Hayes and less Walter Mitty.

[Efbe]

toon10 said:

Dave Hedgehog said:

too much nostalgia for lotus, the elan was nice, the esprit too complicated and unreliable, the elise is just an ugly slow bathtub for hairdressers, the exige is about passable if your a midget and can actually get in one and the new stuff is silly money, so you may as well get the better porker option

Since when was an Elise ugly? Oh and most hairdressers I know are gay men or women. The Elise is too hardcore a machine to attract the skilled with scissors type.

funny that, I don't actually know of any gay hairdressers.

there are about 6 hairdressers/barbers I go to depending on where I am working etc, which employ around 15 men. not one is gay, and it would be pretty obvious because you always get into the conversation about them going out on the town with their mrs, or what their mrs has done today etc

edit: none of them are camp either.

[10 Pence Short]

Lotus will either survive as a niche brand within a VAG type conglomerate, pushing out cars that share technology with the rest of the portfolio, or it should stop trying to mass-build cars of its own and specialise in what it's good at- consultancy and specialist development for other manufacturers.