RE: Dany Bahar: terminated

[SFO]

DonkeyApple said:

Porsche can build cheap as it uses cheap foreign labour

Built in Germany, and not cheap or foreign labour.

[otolith]

A start would be an evolution of the same order as that between the S1 and S2 - new interior and exterior styling, similar weight to the outgoing cars and 200-300bhp.

I just don't feel any inclination to change mine for anything else. It's not just that Lotus don't make anything sufficiently more desirable for me to want to spend the money, nobody does. I quite fancy a supercharged car, but I am not inclined to spend a large amount of money on something which will be substantially the same as what I have.

[GAGA]

Just to quote myself, a viable business plan :

- Go to the Sultan of Brunei, become its financial adviser, tell him to invest in a small sportscar maker in UK
- register the company "YTA Ltd" (Yellow Teeth Automotive)in UK
- buy Lotus Group from DRB Hicom
- buy Aston Martin
- buy Cosworth
- buy the remains of De Tomaso from the administrators (also the former Pininfarina factory)
- assign Lotus with rebodying (with the help of Bertone or Pininfarina) the current Elise
in order to sell it as the new "De Tomaso Vallelunga"
- do the same with the up comming new Esprit: rebody it as new De Tomaso Pantera
- stick Cosworth engines in the De Tomasos
- build all future Aston Martins on the same platforms that Lotus uses
- start building Lotus motorbikes
- unite all companies under the "Yellow Teeth Motors Group"
- marry a british rose (slightly sleazy, slightly coy)
- get knighted for saving two niche carmakers and investing in UK
- start wearing a monocle for no reason
- buy a nice country house
- throw nice and lavish dinner parties reguarly in your garden
- grow a moustache
- start saying "By Jove!", when you're surprised

[jackal]

longblackcoat said:

Lotus are famed amongst the cognoscenti for their lightweight, affordable cars, but simply don’t register on the public’s consciousness.

Exactly.

People seem to be missing the point that they haven't made a single copper in eons and the last time they did, the motoring landscape was very different and will never be like that ever again. Hell, cars aren't like that anymore, the game has completely changed. When the elise s1 was coined, save for a few MX5's, nobody had a roadster and nobody had a trackcar. It was a completely untapped market. Like selling DVD players for the first time ever.

They either do a Bahar and become an Aston martin, that would mean no more tweakey aspergo-mong offerings like the elise in its current form and the exige. Or they downsize by 90% and become and Ariel/Noble. Or they die forever.

[ajprice]

So what happens next? Do they carry on with the Bahar 5 car range in 5 years or whatever it was, or scrap it all and re-reboot ? I'd be happy if they didn't carry on along the Bahar path and as said above, brought it right down to a few cars like Ariel and Noble. The 5 car thing was crazy talk.

[otolith]

I think ideas that they could become Aston, Porsche or Ferrari kind of ignore that those niches are already filled by, you know, Aston, Porsche and Ferrari.

I think they have to find a way of profitably being Lotus or die.

One has to question why anyone who loves what Lotus do would want them to do something else, and why anyone who is scornful of the cars and the people who choose them gives a damn either way.

[Scuffers]

kambites said:

Yet the current V6 Exige is cheaper than the original S1 Exige, once adjusted for inflation

and if you remember back then, the S1 Exige never sold (595 of them).

IMHO, £50k is too much

[HeMightBeBanned]

Lotus' huge problem is there's no compelling reason to change for current Elise/Exige owners. The new facelifted / slower / heavier / whatever Elises have the problem that they have to compete with pre-owned cars that cost half as much and are probably faster.

I'm proof of this problem. I owned an Elise from new for 9 years. A 2001 S2, in fact. I was never tempted to buy a newer Elise because they weren't substantially different or better than the one I already had. Plus, the newer and heavier ones couldn't compete with the performance of mine after I'd dropped a Honda engine in it. I'd effectively be paying more money for something with the same compromises but with lesser performance. So why bother?

Having been forcibly parted from my Elise after it was crashed into and written off, I now find myself looking at Boxsters because I've "been there and done that" with the Elise and don't really want to go back to the compromises, brilliant as it is to drive.

What would tempt me and others is a genuinely revised Elise (not just some crappy facelift) based on the centre section of the (wider-than-Elise) Evora chassis to help get over the problems with the Elises currently compromised interior space. It would then allow for a thoroughly revised and up-to-date interior rather than the Bahar-era approach of trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear using the same basic interior that's been around since 2001. Design and bolt on shorter front and rear sections so that the car doesn't balloon in size and stick a 280bhp engine in the back. Cloth it in an updated, beautiful body made from GRP and bang them out for £45k.

That to me is compelling and I'd be at the front of the queue.

[kambites]

otolith said:

I think they have to find a way of profitably being Lotus or die.

In that case, I'm afraid I'm certain that their only option is to die.

[otolith]

kambites said:

otolith said:

I think they have to find a way of profitably being Lotus or die.

In that case, I'm afraid I'm certain that their only option is to die.

That would be a shame for those who work there, but if you are right that the alternative is that they build cars that we can already buy from someone else, no great loss to the consumer.

[kambites]

otolith said:

That would be a shame for those who work there, but if you are right that the alternative is that they build cars that we can already buy from someone else, no great loss to the consumer.

True.

[JonRB]

The automotive world would be a poorer place without Lotus. I mean, they're LOTUS.

Plus they made the James Bond car that went under water.

[WayneB]

otolith said:

I think ideas that they could become Aston, Porsche or Ferrari kind of ignore that those niches are already filled by, you know, Aston, Porsche and Ferrari.

I think they have to find a way of profitably being Lotus or die.

One has to question why anyone who loves what Lotus do would want them to do something else, and why anyone who is scornful of the cars and the people who choose them gives a damn either way.

Exactly.

Why become a bad imitation of another brand when you already had a good niche product and a loyal following?

Ego perhaps?

The whole thing was driven by Ego, Bahars and his followers who desperately needed a Lotus to be exactly like a Ferrari, I know Bahars reason because they(Ferrari) chucked him out and he wanted to prove a point to them, but it baffles me the amount of average Joes who were all for it, even though they could not have afforded any of the new proposed line up of future Lotus products.

The only thing I can think of is that they thought the Bahar thing would increase the value of the Lotus they already own, thus increasing their own status?

Who knows.

[DonkeyApple]

kambites said:

Lotus need sound management and a completely different business plan. There is no market for the products that they current produce at the prices that they can realistically produce them, IMO.

Personally, I don't think I can see Lotus Cars ever turning a profit unless it's simply as a badge in a major multinational.

I'm inclined to agree.

I think they could build an Esprit in the same vein as the new Noble at a similar price bracket and go out and beat the big brand machinery.

At the same time they could build things to take on Caterham, Atom, KTM etc as road legal track/race cars.

In addition turn yourself into a specialist tuner for a multinational and run a division akin to Schnitzer, RUf etc.

However, a company that does this cannot survive as part of a multinational as it would deliver enough revenue to keep a stand alone happy, much like Morgan, but no profit to even pay the inflated salaries of board members seconded from the parent.

I tried to bid for a business last year that made £2m every year but the parent was shutting it down because their staff were too expensive needing around £500k a year each to run it so it was loss making. Me being a small player I could move the business out of London and use sub £50k staff under my guidance. Brilliant business for me as in this area I know exactly what I'm doing but a terrible business for a multinational who had to stick in big ticket staff who came from different sectors.

With the Lotus idea you low ticket items would be used to keep your premises and staff etc paid with a modest operating profit but real profit and brand kudos from the big beast. A serious problem Noble will have is maintaining order flow. Any dips and they have an expensive labour force sitting there with nothing to do.

Anyway, Lotus won't operate as a standalone but as a novelty subsidiary to a bigger manufacturer in all likelihood. And when you look at the economics of it why would you follow the current plan when in fact it may make more sense to use it as a model badge for your mass produced range. Like an AMG or M Power. Use it to make halo models with a nice chunky premium.

If the recession hadn't bit then the current plan might have made it. It was a logical plan and Lotus certainly have the history to have achieved it but the world has changed in the last few years. It looks like DB maintained a pre 2007 lifestyle which may be how DRB have been able to get him out.

[DonkeyApple]

SFO said:

Built in Germany, and not cheap or foreign labour.

The most valuable model is the Cayenne. It's nearly 50% of sales and has the best margins. It's built in eastern Europe.

More importantly are where the parts are made and part assembled.

[rubystone]

JonRB said:

Plus they made the James Bond car that went under water.

Now THAT is what really matters

[suffolk009]

I like this from Wikipedia about the MX5: It continues to be the best-selling two-seat convertible sports car in history and by February 2011 over 900,000 MX-5s had been built and sold around the world.

And I'm pretty certain the MX5 was directly inspired by the Lotus Elan. So why can't they just do an Elan again? Mainstream appeal, mainstream pricing, mainstream sales.

Everyone is happy.

[JonRB]

suffolk009 said:

I like this from Wikipedia about the MX5: It continues to be the best-selling two-seat convertible sports car in history and by February 2011 over 900,000 MX-5s had been built and sold around the world.

And I'm pretty certain the MX5 was directly inspired by the Lotus Elan. So why can't they just do an Elan again?

Because the MX-5 has sewn that up and there are around 900,000 of them on the second hand market? (losses due to scrappage and crashage excepted)

[kambites]

suffolk009 said:

I like this from Wikipedia about the MX5: It continues to be the best-selling two-seat convertible sports car in history and by February 2011 over 900,000 MX-5s had been built and sold around the world.

And I'm pretty certain the MX5 was directly inspired by the Lotus Elan. So why can't they just do an Elan again? Mainstream appeal, mainstream pricing, mainstream sales.

Everyone is happy.

And how exactly do you expect a company the size of Lotus to manage "mainstream pricing"? If Lotus made an MX5, it'd be at least 5k more expensive than the Mazda, and probably not as well built so no-one would buy it.

I'm not sure where this idea that the Elan was a cheap car comes from anyway; it was probably more expensive than the Elise.

[Scuffers]

suffolk009 said:

I like this from Wikipedia about the MX5: It continues to be the best-selling two-seat convertible sports car in history and by February 2011 over 900,000 MX-5s had been built and sold around the world.

And I'm pretty certain the MX5 was directly inspired by the Lotus Elan. So why can't they just do an Elan again? Mainstream appeal, mainstream pricing, mainstream sales.

Everyone is happy.

Pointless...

Lotus could never compete against the mainstream manufacture with the same kind of product.

Lotus need to be ahead of the innovation game, else they will die.