Never in a million bloody years!! Attrocious design inside the latest Boxster.

Trust me, the uncertain state of health of Lotus is accounting for a lot of its troubles right now! It certainly stopped me from giving them any money lately and I was a Lotus invite to Geneva.

Lotus produce cars which appeal to keen drivers, it's becoming harder and harder in the modern fuel price, 40mph club and crap roads modern UK to be a car enthusiast thats what i think is happening at lotus.

I use my TF less and less now, i always think whats thet point i'm only going to get bounced about and stuck behing a mpv doing 35mph down the good roads.

Really, at this stage, it's not about how positive you are, it's about how informative you are. We want to what state they're in.

Elsewhere, it's been commented that at Goodwood Lotus chose to concentrate on the cars they can currently sell, rather than future projects like the Esprit - so what about some thoughts on those cars, their pricing and what they're up against? Can you actually buy a GTE in the UK, and if so, what's the price? What's the deal with the convertible Evora - will that signal changes in the base model? Is the base model Elise a good deal, or out-performed by an MX-5 at 25% less price? What's their order book like, and what's the waiting list on the (much praised) Exige V6?

If Lotus weren't talking, why not have a chat with some of the dealers? They must have a view - and some more information - on what's been going on. Bahar's treatment of them was fairly controversial, and they've had to survive the first half of this year on a handful of sales. If people can't actually go somewhere and see, try and buy a Lotus, then that's a bigger issue for the future than past performance.

I think you've been unfortunate that your article was the straw that broke the camel's back. The Lotus situation is serious, they're an important part of the British motor industry and there are a lot of jobs at risk. Yet the coverage we've got over the last six months has been inconsistent, uninformative and credulous. Surely Pistonheads can do better - either with the backing of a big player in the British media, or as an independent commentator?

Yep just what lotus need, there badge on the T25, have you actually seen pictures of it?

http://www.gordonmurraydesign.com/press-smiths-sch...

Hardly anyone buys so called lightweight sports cars, the Elise was the biggest seller in that market and it sells in a fraction of the volumes of cars like the Boxter, Z4 etc, so how people are saying that this concept is going to save the company i dont know

There more likely to save the company building SUV's, than they are with all these sub 600kg lightweights being suggested

Ridiculous. Don't believe the CEO folks, believe the journo with an agenda. I can't bothered to do a simple search and post perhaps 20 sources about production stoppages or slowing to a trickle or suppliers not being paid. Any reader can do this themselves as can you. You could perhaps call a dealer, any dealer and ask them( but you won't), you might want to see how much new stock the dealers have received over this period ( but you won't ). This is not a hard thing to confirm, (even the staff at Goodwood would have told you) but you won't because you only want to avoid admitting error.

Nice job ignoring the other points too. I give up, I'll not post again since you've made your position, and attitudes very clear.

They took up a lot of space, but didn't actually have that many cars on it.

I liked the Lotus stand. As it had so little on it the cars really were easy to see from every angle and individually.

I have no idea what Lotus should do but something that would be nice for the enthusiast would be drop the price of the Elise - make it even more basic, make it a trackday car you can use if you are dedicated everyday.

I loved my VX220 it was simple, I think it (the 2.2) was the best of any of the Elise platform cars except for the ABS ECU. When you live with one though it makes you wonder where any of the cost was, silly low volume bits were horribly expensive I.e. the lights but if you want to drop the price just use some off a mass market car. Development costs money of course but as has been repeatedly pointed out the Elise platform is now very old in the scheme of things.

That's mainly because Lotus have covered enough ground over the years to offer all things to all people. Do you believe in the 'Seven era lotus - bare metal and spit? Or maybe the classic Elan era - lightweight and classic motoring? Or the Esprit - high end and prestige sportcars? Or the Elise - precise track toy and roadster?

Add in those who would rather drive a Porsche, BMW, or Ariel or pay MX-5 prices, and you get a dozen different opinions about where Lotus should go. Most of them ignore the realities of what the company is capable of and best suited to doing.

That last point is most important. Saying they could take on Mazda is insane unless they could match Mazda's production facilities and cost base - which might mean manufacturing in Malaysia, which would have various people up in arms.

They are frequently quoted as having 1300 employees. Ferrari have about double that, including I assume the F1 department. In employee terms, Porsche employ TEN TIMES as many as Lotus. So in scale terms they are much closer to Ferrari, and in terms of car production that model is far more logical; perhaps not necessarily identical, but they need the same kind of markup if they sell the same number of cars. They simply can't match BMW or Porsche for manufacturing capacity. Lotus probably need to sell twice as many cars as they do (did?) but not the orders of magnitude these companies represent.

At the other end, Pagani employ 55. Ariel employ 7. Whilst the actual number of people employed in these enterprises is much larger than that (what was that story about AMG employing more people on Pagani engines than PAgani employ full stop), these do not represent any kind of viable business model for Lotus.

From this perpective, Bahar's plan of taking Lotus upmarket is valid, provided the product can match the price tag. The Exige S is well recieved, the convertible version (will they produce this?) is beautifully trimmed. The margins on the Elise are too low, and I suspect the Exige probably costs the same as the Elise to build. They could start their model range there and go upwards but they need the investment to address the problems that prevent them reaching a wider audience. A couple of loops does not a cup holder make. I hate golf and the idea of the sports car as trinket to fat middle aged golfer, but if the guys with the cheque books want to put two golf bags in the boot, then that's what is required. In the second decade of the 21st century, the Elise roof should not exist, or there should be a powered version if people want that. Colin Chapman might not have been happy, but then he was a much better engineer than he was a businessman.

I think that the Bahar 5-car lineup made sense, just not as the radical departure he described. The "new Elise" is the Exige S. The "New Elan" is the Evora. The new Esprit is close to delivery. All that was needed above that was a 2-door and 4-door platform-sharing variant when the other lines were bedded in.

In terms of Lotus now, I cna't imagine why they keep missing open goals. There was a load of press about 18 months ago along the lines of "don't buy an Evora, there's a facelift coming". The facelift was the GTE, but since the GTE nose looks much better than the standard Evora front, why not just roll it out across the range anyway?!