RE: Lotus: Dead weight lifted or dead man walking?
Discussion
Ecosseven said:
I love lotus and would hate to see them disappear but the MX-5 is just unbeatable value at these prices for the vast majority of people.
I agree - Lotus shouldn't be aiming to compete with the MX-5, because that price is unbeatable, and shouldn't be aiming at the majority of people because what it can do particularly well is not appreciated by the majority of people.Fittster said:
KDIcarmad said:
It's funny how some small British car marks seem to last, take Morgan, Aston Martin and until recently Bristol.
Aston go bust and they badge is revived on a regular basis.Bust in 1924
Bust in 1925
Bust in 1975
The firm also gets into regular financial difficulties and is passed onto another lot of businessmen.
Looking at their ageing line up and low sales, I don't think it will be long before they are passed on again.
I read that a well know racing driver in the 60's try to buy one. On being told it was £5,500 ask if he could buy it at cost, only to told that would be £6,500. Aston and sound finance may we should let them run the banks!
Above is the VW GX3 concept that Lotus help to make work, this is not the only three wheeler they also made the electric Zap Alias electric car go round corners..(not sold in the UK sorry...)
Morgan has shown there is a demand for three wheelers. Now a Lotus three wheeler, to fit below the Elise sound a bit crazy. The above shows Lotus could do it. Would you buy one?
propaganda said:
Why are they not selling in droves? Because they are selling the same product as they sold ten years ago, they have not advanced one bit - a few different engines, some slight bodywork changes, and a lot of stripes.
Yet it's still renowned as the best mainstream(ish) drivers' car on the market.They aren't selling because there is no market for drivers' cars. People want a badge that impresses the neighbours and pretty plastics, not steering feel and handling balance.
Max_Torque said:
Unfortunately, at this time, Lotus haven't got a Brand that can support a premium or super premium product. It takes time to build that confidence and attract a new segment of buyers.
So how come Koenigsegg (sorry I don't know how to spell it) and Pagani are selling cars which cost 7 figures sterling? The modern Bugatti has no relationship with previous companies of that name, and sold cars in 7 figures from the off.The Noble company is going for it - does anyone know whether they are selling £200k cars? (I still hope to see an affordable new sports car from Lee Noble - when he started his sports car company, he deliberately aimed his car at what he thought was then a gap in the market, and for a while it looked to be working. Another question, is the US company which bought the rights to the original Noble still producing cars?).
Personally, I think the Evora would have been, or would be, a success, if more people liked the way it looked. I might have bought an M250 if that had reached the market because it looked stunning; who knows whether cancelling that was a good move, 'just' because it was not developed to work in the US market?
Lovers of so-called affordable road sports cars are amazingly well served these days, with all of Boxster/SLK/Z4 above the MX5 in the 2 seat convertible market, and a host of excellent hot hatches. For those who do not care about civility, surely the G40 fills the gap previously filled by Elise/Exige?
I love Lotus and even I think the cars are overpriced, underperforming and there is no way a shop full of tat will save the day.
Enjoyable sports cars is Lotus, shops full of tat is Ferrari.
Lotus need to get back to their Lotus ethos and add a decent range of moderately powerful engines (try an Elise with 350bhp) instead of the wheezing dullards they have now, its not enough to make the cars properly fun.
Who wants a boring Lotus?
I think no-one does, the no sales part kinda gives it away.
Enjoyable sports cars is Lotus, shops full of tat is Ferrari.
Lotus need to get back to their Lotus ethos and add a decent range of moderately powerful engines (try an Elise with 350bhp) instead of the wheezing dullards they have now, its not enough to make the cars properly fun.
Who wants a boring Lotus?
I think no-one does, the no sales part kinda gives it away.
Lotus should be aiming their products at me. I had an Elise in 2001-2004 and then purchased a Noble M12GTO3R because there was no Lotus equivalent in the price/performance bracket around £50k. The only option I could consider was an incredibly out of date Espirit (great though they were in their day).
Lotus's mistake was Lee Noble's gain (though he may not have known it then)and he sold hundreds, if not 1000+. Now Noble's mistake (whether Lee's or Noble Automotive's) is that no one connected with the M12/M400 saw the chance to establish themselves with a product that could have evolved from the M12, just like Porsche has done with the 911. The further we travel away from Noble's mistake the bigger that mistake will appear to be.
So its now gone full circle, the M12's and M400s are now ageing but still holding good value but people like me, the original owners are selling up (mine went in March - and I do not expect to drive a car that good...ever again). So now its for Lotus to fill that niche. And perhaps they have, with the latest higher powered Exige.
BUT
Am I going to travel to central London, congestion charge and all that...come on...Lotus. Who made that decision. Why would I, want the hassle. A posh location..what's that got to do with it.
The posh shop should be at Hethel and I'd much rather travel the extra 100 miles because after the shop I can try the car on track. It's so simple. And it would work.
If Lotus are listening they'll email me an invite. If they are not, they won't. Enough said.
Lotus's mistake was Lee Noble's gain (though he may not have known it then)and he sold hundreds, if not 1000+. Now Noble's mistake (whether Lee's or Noble Automotive's) is that no one connected with the M12/M400 saw the chance to establish themselves with a product that could have evolved from the M12, just like Porsche has done with the 911. The further we travel away from Noble's mistake the bigger that mistake will appear to be.
So its now gone full circle, the M12's and M400s are now ageing but still holding good value but people like me, the original owners are selling up (mine went in March - and I do not expect to drive a car that good...ever again). So now its for Lotus to fill that niche. And perhaps they have, with the latest higher powered Exige.
BUT
Am I going to travel to central London, congestion charge and all that...come on...Lotus. Who made that decision. Why would I, want the hassle. A posh location..what's that got to do with it.
The posh shop should be at Hethel and I'd much rather travel the extra 100 miles because after the shop I can try the car on track. It's so simple. And it would work.
If Lotus are listening they'll email me an invite. If they are not, they won't. Enough said.
waremark said:
Another question, is the US company which bought the rights to the original Noble still producing cars?).
Almost. They replace the Noble M400 with the new Rossion Q1 and sold a good number of them, then re-organized their business model and plans. Last I heard they were shipping the jogs and bucks from South Africa to a new factory in Oregon and planning a stripped down version of the car for the track use market, and also looking to markets in Middle East and China instead of US.Randy
previous owner... Noble M4oo and Rossion Q1
CRB1 said:
The posh shop should be at Hethel and I'd much rather travel the extra 100 miles because after the shop I can try the car on track. It's so simple. And it would work.
If Lotus are listening they'll email me an invite. If they are not, they won't. Enough said.
Brilliant. In the few times I have visited the factory, there was scant opportunity to buy anything other than a few Lotus Sport items. Would certainly be a lot easier to cover the monthly rent.If Lotus are listening they'll email me an invite. If they are not, they won't. Enough said.
caine100 said:
If we dissect the Evora: it looks rubbish, sounds rubbish, the interior is rubbish, build quality is rubbish, the gearbox is rubbish and it costs 75 grand. Is it any surprise the Evora isn't selling?
Off-topic but loosely related: the Lotus IndyCar engines are also s
t.
"It looks rubbish" Does it though? Here's mine:Off-topic but loosely related: the Lotus IndyCar engines are also s
t.
"The interior is rubbish" Is it though? Here's mine:
"It sounds rubbish" The car has updated exhaust system which sound great (try youtube) and a sports exhaust available now.
"Build quality is rubbish" The car has had hundreds of detail updates over time and if you actually looked you'd see the quality is fine on earlier cars and fantastic on recent ones.
"gearbox is rubbish" MY12 cars have new cables which deal with the stiff shift issues of earlier cars so its absolutely fine. Earlier cars may have these retro fitted at a dealer.
"it costs 75 Grand" No, it does not.
On the article itself. I really am becoming disappointed in the quality of PH journalism, particularly as regards Lotus. PH writers, you are professionals, it is your job to inform. Lotus does not only sell cars in the UK, quoting UK only figures is a nonsensical approach which I must assume you take deliberately to suit a narrative. Even worse, the reason for these figures is well known and in the public domain. You choose not to inform readers though.
After the DRB takeover Lotus suspended manufacturing totally for many months to comply with the Malaysian law on acquisitions. If you knew this and chose not mention it then that is clearly misinforming to paint a deliberately negative picture. If you didn't know then frankly you should think about standards. This following PH very prominently pushing the Joe Saward story on Bahar awhile back with a narrative of "Lotus is in trouble", rather than "employee of Tony Fernandes puts out fake news story intended to damage rival". That would have been more enlightening.
I don't suggest bias, but I do suggest that the impending demise of Lotus has become the latest ongoing soap opera story of the motoring press (stoked by Bahars behaviour) and PH is pushing this story for all its worth. It used to be the case that drivers could read PH for informed stories on sports cars, now it is becoming very obviously ill informed or provocative journalism intended to start the kind of "my brand is better than yours" playground fights that now dominate the forums.
I whinge because actually I've enjoyed PH for a long time. I don't really enjoy the motoring version of The Sun quite so much. You have the budget to pay Chris Harris to compare the latest Renault Twizy and then a Massey Ferguson tractor to a 911 week in week out, why not reach out to someone like Dicky Meaden or even Cathpole to contribute? If not I assume the next step will be Richard Porter belching spite like a schoolboy on these pages and PH becoming Top Gear online.
waremark said:
So how come Koenigsegg (sorry I don't know how to spell it) and Pagani are selling cars which cost 7 figures sterling? The modern Bugatti has no relationship with previous companies of that name, and sold cars in 7 figures from the off.
Bugatti first: It's well known that they lost money on every Veryon sold, even at >£1M! Only VWs pigheadedness to build "the finest, fastest, car in the world and sod the cost" kept them going. If Lotus could find a backer with pockets that deep they would be sorted!Pagani: There cars were super premimum all along, and ultra low volume. So over £300k before taxes and making only a handful a year. It still has taken them the best part of 10 years to establish themselves as a benchmark in that arena, by applying fastideous attention to detail and a "money no object" approach.
Koenigsegg: A very small company, funded by a backer again with deep pockets. Keeping their overheads low has just about kept them afloat, but again, volumes are ultra low and price high.
In either of those two cases, the market is effectively already established. if you don't want a Ferrari or Lambo, and can't afford a Bug, then you already have a reasonably large choice across the niche low volume manufacturers. Lotus would have to compete, and beat those manufacturers in order to "steal" their sales, and even then, the volume would be too low to keep a company the size of Lotus Cars afloat.
Larger, established Brands like Porsche have access to a funding route to support the £250M to £500M, that a single new platform costs to develop, BEFORE they have an income stream from that platform.
Add in a relatively new product portfolio from the likes of Mclaren and Noble etc, and the places you can spend your ~£200k are large. This makes for a competitive and difficult market for anyone.
Hellbound said:
What he said ^.
Lethargy has overcome me this evening so this is going to be somewhat brief; You've outlined exactly what's been nagging me about these Lotus semi hit-jobs. Sadly most PHer responses are just as linear.
Bloody good point.Lethargy has overcome me this evening so this is going to be somewhat brief; You've outlined exactly what's been nagging me about these Lotus semi hit-jobs. Sadly most PHer responses are just as linear.
The poorly informed, incorrect, sheep like b
ks spoken about the Evora on PH is pretty pathetic.The media are not being even handed about Lotus in my opinion. I see little evidence of proper journalism, only reheated polemic spouting the same old nonsense.
The Evora IS a decent car. And while it is too expensive, it seems to me that they do sell once they have fallen to a more sensible level.
But a significant amount of the negativity thrown at them is simply b
ks by people who have never experienced one.I was rather taken with the one I tried. I can't think of anything nicer to spend the £45k low mileage ones go for these days.
MX7 said:
I thought that was a Top Gear 'fact'?
I think the "fact" is that the overall cost of development of the Veyron, start to finish, was never going to be recouped by sales of the cars. However, the engineering that went into it doubtless counted as overall engineering and development so the lessons learnt were probably more global. Ultimately, however, the Veyron was more about making a statement and being the company that did it best. Good advert basically.KDIcarmad said:
Above is the VW GX3 concept that Lotus help to make work, this is not the only three wheeler they also made the electric Zap Alias electric car go round corners..(not sold in the UK sorry...)
Morgan has shown there is a demand for three wheelers. Now a Lotus three wheeler, to fit below the Elise sound a bit crazy. The above shows Lotus could do it. Would you buy one?
Hellbound said:
Lethargy has overcome me this evening so this is going to be somewhat brief; You've outlined exactly what's been nagging me about these Lotus semi hit-jobs. Sadly most PHer responses are just as linear.
That makes at least three of us thinking this.The reason we get the same old rubbish spouted in these forums is that the people who're in the know and who could actually help form opinion about Lotus come out with empty headed articles like the one here. Why is it so hard to do some decent analysis of Lotus, when the facts have been gone over time and time again?
The crap about build quality (did anyone come out with 'Loads of Trouble..' yet?), building an MX-5 competitor, prices when compared against other cars and so on, comes out in every thread - doesn't that reflect a complete failure of this site in actually talking about the state of Lotus?
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