RE: Lotus parent company sold

[AllNines]

marshalla said:

If Group Lotus folded/disappeared would TF then not be able to expand the usage of the Team Lotus name ? (I don't recall hearing that it had been transferred to GL or anyone else, just that a deal had been done for him to stop using it - and the Renault team has not been rebranded as Team Lotus, just Lotus).

Just speculating wildly, btw - not proposing anything seriously.

Group Lotus have indeed acquired the Team Lotus name, but are just not using it (quite right, too). All trademarks were registered to GL last month. If TF wanted the name back, he would have to buy the whole company, as was his original intention. Would he still want it, though?

[The Wookie]

zebedee said:

The new boxster that isn't +2 you mean? My kids sat in the back of an Evora for a hundred miles and couldn't get enough of it. They didn't complain about it being cramped and dark either. I think they might have complained if I'd put them in the back of a Boxster. Also beauty is in the eye of the beholder, the Evora looks far better in the flesh and is very purposeful looking, to me the Boxster is just so dull, common and flabby to look at, I don't even flicker my pupils slightly if one goes past.

Don't bother. Some on here love to pick holes in the Evora because it hasn't sold well whilst ignoring the shortcomings of its rivals. I love Porsches and I spent a year with a Gen2 997 Carrera, and I'd take the Lotus any day, particularly a MY12.

Taking my car back to where my parents live in Surrey, if there's one major problem the Evora has it's that nobody knows that it exists.

[marshalla]

AllNines said:

Group Lotus have indeed acquired the Team Lotus name, but are just not using it (quite right, too). All trademarks were registered to GL last month. If TF wanted the name back, he would have to buy the whole company, as was his original intention. Would he still want it, though?

Fair enough.

I suspect he might swoop in with a bid for some IPR/designs (not that he really needs them because of recent staff moves), but doubt that he has much interest in the company as a going concern these days.

[peter450]

otolith said:

How much faster would you actually drive down your local B-road in the Beemer? Would you actually be having more fun?

I would not be driving any faster, and i'd be having just as much fun

The differance is my fun would not end if i wanted a bit more shove to get past someone quickly, or if i just wanted to get that shoved into the back of the seat feeling

You dont buy a Sports car for Comfort, Economy, or easy of use, although many sports car are comfortable and easy to live with day to day

The Elise is not, it's a hardcore Sports car bought for performance and looks, it's just that in 2011 guise it's missing the performance part (in fact it has been for a while but the 2011 engine change really highlighted just how low the performance has fallen relative to peers compared to the original cars, which also have the benefit of being quite cleverly engineered original concepts at the time), which is why they have hardly sold any 1.6's

Good handling is not enough, it needs good performance aswell to offset the compromises made elsewere, they really missed a trick not chucking in the FI bits from the 1.8, into the 1.6, 170hp and 150lbft would have given it enough go, the current level of performance the car offers is an embarrasment to the brand if i'm honest

You only have to look at the launch marketing a blurb of publicity about C02 and Fuel economy, like there selling a small engined economy car? perhaps they wanted to draw attention away from the drop! in power in an already underpowered car

[Scuffers]

in the context that the original Elise was 118hp in 700Kg's it's a joke.

[RTH]

The Wookie said:

... Some on here love to pick holes in the Evora because it hasn't sold well .

Sales are the arbiter on whether a production car is successful or not and if the manufacturer can stay in business.
Sales are poor when not enough people want to buy something because it is insufficiently desirable and or affordable.
You cannot run a commercial enterprise employing hundreds of people and not care if your products do not sell well.
Lotus sales registered just 329 new cars in UK in 2011. 40 years ago they sold 5000 units per year with a 4 model range plus racing cars. Ferrari sell 6000 cars worldwide per year.
It is not that they cannot make them at its peak the Elise alone sold 2500 cars in a year. Not a bit of good unless enough people want to buy.

Edited by RTH on Friday 20th January 07:31

[rallycross]

[quote=RTH]
Lotus sales registered just 329 new cars in UK in 2011. 40 years ago they sold 5000 units per year with a 4 model range plus racing cars. quote]


You are more likely to see an Elan plus 2 or an old Esprit being driven on the road than an Evora - that is how few they have sold!

[The Wookie]

RTH said:

Sales are the arbiter on whether a production car is successful or not

I wasn't trying to argue whether the Evora has been a sales success or not, what I was saying was that people like to criticise the Evora as a car when better selling rivals have plenty of shortcomings that are overlooked.

My point is that there is a difference between an unsuccessful car and a bad one. There have been plenty of bad cars that have been a sales success (Ford Escort Mk5, Vauxhall Vectra, Morris Marina, etc) and plenty of great cars that have not been a sales success (Porsche 928, Honda NSX, VW Phaeton).

Usually it's a case of market targeting rather than the smaller issues that people love to blame and fuss about on here.

[SWoll]

RTH said:

The Wookie said:

... Some on here love to pick holes in the Evora because it hasn't sold well .

Sales are the arbiter on whether a production car is successful or not and if the manufacturer can stay in business.
Sales are poor when not enough people want to buy something because it is insufficiently desirable and or affordable.
You cannot run a commercial enterprise employing hundreds of people and not care if your products do not sell well.
Lotus sales registered just 329 new cars in UK in 2011. 40 years ago they sold 5000 units per year with a 4 model range plus racing cars. Ferrari sell 6000 cars worldwide per year.
It is not that they cannot make them at its peak the Elise alone sold 2500 cars in a year. Not a bit of good unless enough people want to buy.

Edited by RTH on Friday 20th January 07:31

I do worry for Lotus. Having read this months EVO, which dedicates a huge amount of space to their new models and 'vision' for the future I think they are at a tipping point. Time will tell, but aligning the brand with the likes of "swizz beatz" and putting crap like this on their website smacks of desperation to me.

Hope I'm wrong, but when an obviously excellent car such as the Evora barely sells (I've seen 1 on the road since they were released. I've seen more 599GTO's than that) you've got to worry where their potential customer base is going to come from.

The new V6 Exige-S looks utterly awesome though...

[Ozzie Osmond]

Oh dear, oh dear! More trouble for Lotus, albeit not quite on the DeLorean scale. Swizz Beatz company has been taken down by the FBI for online piracy and several people arrested....

http://www.eurweb.com/2012/01/swizz-beatz-megauplo...

[otolith]

Ozzie Osmond said:

Oh dear, oh dear! More trouble for Lotus, albeit not quite on the DeLorean scale. Swizz Beatz company has been taken down by the FBI for online piracy and several people arrested....

http://www.eurweb.com/2012/01/swizz-beatz-megauplo...

Edgy - authentic and urban, just the thing

[Monkey boy 1]

Scuffers said:

in the context that the original Elise was 118hp in 700Kg's it's a joke.

Like the Mk1 VW Golf was 810kg & the Mk4 was 1200kg.

New cars weigh more . FACT.
Bigger wheels & tyres, safety features that by legislation have to be fitted etc etc.

[Scuffers]

Monkey boy 1 said:

Scuffers said:

in the context that the original Elise was 118hp in 700Kg's it's a joke.

Like the Mk1 VW Golf was 810kg & the Mk4 was 1200kg.

New cars weigh more . FACT.
Bigger wheels & tyres, safety features that by legislation have to be fitted etc etc.

to a point, maybe, but mostly it's a cop out.

Current golf is a huge car compared to a Mk1, nearest current VW equivalent would be the 'UP', which (according to VW) is 929Kg's, and is fully loaded with multiple airbaggs, ABS, ESP, PAS, etc. (and it's still a bigger car than the Mk1 golf was).

Edited by Scuffers on Friday 20th January 15:33

[Tuna]

RTH said:

Sales are the arbiter on whether a production car is successful or not and if the manufacturer can stay in business.
Sales are poor when not enough people want to buy something because it is insufficiently desirable and or affordable.

Sales can also be poor when a good product is poorly marketed, difficult to purchase, perceived to have poor support, hard to finance or untrusted in the market place. Lotus could produce the perfect car and some of these issues would remain unresolved. By contrast, Porsche could produce a very questionable product and it would still sell in good numbers (numbers Lotus would be very happy with) due to the goodwill attached to the brand, extensive marketing and wide reaching, efficient sales channel.

That the Evora, an entirely new product, is selling slowly does not mean that it's a bad product nor necessarily overpriced. If the usual response on the street is "A what?", then the problem is that people aren't coming into contact with the car, not that they don't like it.

[Scuffers]

Na, don't buy that excuse.

[Tuna]

Scuffers said:

Na, don't buy that excuse.

Not an excuse, the quality of the car is the least of Lotus' problems. Compare the rave reviews with the number of people who've actually sat in the thing. Anyone considering a Cayman should, if the reviews are taken even remotely seriously, test drive an Evora to compare. I'm pretty sure they aren't.

It's a cop-out to say the car should be faster, cheaper, higher quality or whatever. There isn't a car on the planet that couldn't be one of those. The reviews are clear that the Evora is a challenger, more so than the Artega, Ginetta and a few other hopefuls. The showrooms should be booking up test drives.... are they?

Edited by Tuna on Friday 20th January 21:28

[RoySlater]

Discussing the merits of cars is interesting, I would suggest some things for Lotus as a company:

- Unless the new owners buy into the Bahr vision, then its going nowhere and they are being sold
- Stop spending money like they are on disjointed things. Re Swiss Beatz, Gino Rosatto, more racing car programs than any other manufacturer in the world (which is no small achievement, albeit stupid in the extreme), shops on regent street, T125 track day cars, FIA test tracks at Hethel, etc etc
- Start selling their current car lineup (no income or even breaking even on that side at the moment let alone the future...)
- Stop looking back at past glories and actually make some of their own. The Lotus of 2012 is not Colin Chapmans vision, he would never have allowed Bahar on the premises

[WhoseGeneration]

Now, just consider if the MX5 had actually been a Lotus, or that the GT86 was also to be.
Relatively affordable drivers cars, with reliability. Possibly providing the funding to also have more extreme models.

[Techn0]

otolith said:

Ozzie Osmond said:

Oh dear, oh dear! More trouble for Lotus, albeit not quite on the DeLorean scale. Swizz Beatz company has been taken down by the FBI for online piracy and several people arrested....

http://www.eurweb.com/2012/01/swizz-beatz-megauplo...

Edgy - authentic and urban, just the thing

said:

• When the federal government squashed popular file-sharing site Megaupload on Thursday, it appeared as if producer Swizz Beatz would become a target as its reported CEO.

But according to the 75-page now-unsealed indictment, Beatz, (born Kaseem Dean), is not involved with the suit, and his name does not appear anywhere in the document. There are seven targets, four of which have already been apprehended, including owner Kim Dotcom.
Though there were rumors that Dean was a “silent partner” in the business, Megaupload’s lawyers said that the hip-hop mogul’s involvement in the company had been greatly exaggerated.
“He was in conversations to be named CEO,” attorney Ira P. Rothken told the New York Daily News. “His involvement in the company was highly attenuated. There were discussions and he was involved in a promotional video and in brainstorming future projects, but not much else.”
In fact, Rothken told the Washington Post, “My understanding is that there wasn’t actually a CEO of the company.” And Forbes noted, “If [Dean] was involved, it wasn’t on the books.”

http://www.eurweb.com/2012/01/swizz-beatz-was-not-ceo-of-megaupload-during-shutdown/

Nice thinly veiled comment there...

[jackal]

zebedee said:

Tuna said:

I've really enjoyed every Lotus I've driven (and there have been a few), ... I enjoy driving

Perhaps the problem is that Lotus think too many people actually enjoy driving? As said many times on here, people buy cars like white goods and when you see a nice car, how rare is it that you actually see it being driven as it was intended? Perhaps the problem is that however fine the chassis, however much engineering has gone into it, however good it would make the driver feel if they actually gave it a chance, the fact that people who actually like driving and are good enough to appreciate all that are so few and far between that they will never sell volumes they want to. I really hope not, but sadly I suspect it might be the case. Perhaps as people get more money and move away from elise and exige the problems are even worse and then it is all just about the posing? In today's paper there is a guy saying he is looking forward to buying a Lamborghini after his lottery win so he can "purr around in it". Says it all really, I would never have put purr and lambo in the same sentence.

Exactly. 99.9% DGAF about the chassis or steering feel. They just want an Audi TT that looks good and has a swanky interior.

Pistonheads = tiny weeny miniscule forum chock full of left brain dominant freaks. Its not the real world.