RE: Lotus - Geneva 2015

[DonkeyApple]

SidewaysSi said:

Agreed - I think however on every "what car?" thread that pops up on PH, I will recommend a Lotus. Will do my bit for raising brand awareness...

' Lotus YOLO'

That should help.

[DonkeyApple]

SidewaysSi said:

I agree to an extent but having some yummy mummy trying to hitch her skirt over the sill and dropping into the fixed back seat would not go down well. Likewise, would a kid in inner city London really want a trackcar? Brand awareness can be built up so far but I assume most people do not drop £30k + into something without trying it out.

Besides, whilst people may not know the cars are a Lotus, they do think they are expensive and exotic.

As I said earlier, I think a Lotus is actually the perfect car for the average trackday goer as it is the one car that can do it all. People compare Lotus with Caymans etc but the reality is that they are nothing like a Cayman. I see them as a more practical and useable Caterham/Atom etc rather than a cheap(er) Porsche.

It is the likes of PH, EVO etc that Lotus need to target (EVO does seem to be sponsored by Porsche) so that anyone reading knows just how bloody good at everything they are.

In comparison, Boxsters/Caymans and non-GT 911s should be seen to be the fat, average to drive expresses that they are.

I think you are right. They are a luxury track car. But to get enough volume to be financially secure they need more volume. They can only do that by having a product that appeals to the masses.

I don't see the point in trying to mass produce a cheap entry product but rather make the existing products more asperational and easier to use for boring commuting and cafe culture lifestyle.

The Evora is perfect and lowering the sills helps as does adding an auto but I think they need to do more to the overall shape and make it more streamlined and Ferrari like, or like the new GT40 etc.

There is no doubt in my mind that people only say the Evora is expensive because it looks cheap (in relative terms) on the outside. Give it a sexier body so that it can park next to prime exotica and look just as good and at £70k people will be queueing to grab the bargain of the century.

[AW111]

You Ought (to) Look Out?
You Own Lotusses Often?
Your Own Lotus Outside?

[SidewaysSi]

DonkeyApple said:

SidewaysSi said:

I agree to an extent but having some yummy mummy trying to hitch her skirt over the sill and dropping into the fixed back seat would not go down well. Likewise, would a kid in inner city London really want a trackcar? Brand awareness can be built up so far but I assume most people do not drop £30k + into something without trying it out.

Besides, whilst people may not know the cars are a Lotus, they do think they are expensive and exotic.

As I said earlier, I think a Lotus is actually the perfect car for the average trackday goer as it is the one car that can do it all. People compare Lotus with Caymans etc but the reality is that they are nothing like a Cayman. I see them as a more practical and useable Caterham/Atom etc rather than a cheap(er) Porsche.

It is the likes of PH, EVO etc that Lotus need to target (EVO does seem to be sponsored by Porsche) so that anyone reading knows just how bloody good at everything they are.

In comparison, Boxsters/Caymans and non-GT 911s should be seen to be the fat, average to drive expresses that they are.

I think you are right. They are a luxury track car. But to get enough volume to be financially secure they need more volume. They can only do that by having a product that appeals to the masses.

I don't see the point in trying to mass produce a cheap entry product but rather make the existing products more asperational and easier to use for boring commuting and cafe culture lifestyle.

The Evora is perfect and lowering the sills helps as does adding an auto but I think they need to do more to the overall shape and make it more streamlined and Ferrari like, or like the new GT40 etc.

There is no doubt in my mind that people only say the Evora is expensive because it looks cheap (in relative terms) on the outside. Give it a sexier body so that it can park next to prime exotica and look just as good and at £70k people will be queueing to grab the bargain of the century.

Part of the problem is perhaps the shape (though they have a lot of presence on the road). I think it partially to do with being fibreglass, using a Toyota engine and "it's the same as an Elise and they are £20k innit types".

Fact is that the Elise is the best road and trackcar for sub £50k and in some ways it should be the natural progression for Clio RS drivers.

The Exige is the big power trackcar and a cheaper and probably better 911 RS.

The Evora is the road and trackcar for the family man.

The fact they have the best chassis and steering in the world is a bonus.

All can be used as sole cars with actually very little in the way of compromise. It makes me laugh when people worry about the sills-try living with a Caterham or Atom for any period of time-you will be yearning for a "high silled" Elise S1!

[DonkeyApple]

SidewaysSi said:

Part of the problem is perhaps the shape (though they have a lot of presence on the road). I think it partially to do with being fibreglass, using a Toyota engine and "it's the same as an Elise and they are £20k innit types".

Fact is that the Elise is the best road and trackcar for sub £50k and in some ways it should be the natural progression for Clio RS drivers.

The Exige is the big power trackcar and a cheaper and probably better 911 RS.

The Evora is the road and trackcar for the family man.

The fact they have the best chassis and steering in the world is a bonus.

All can be used as sole cars with actually very little in the way of compromise. It makes me laugh when people worry about the sills-try living with a Caterham or Atom for any period of time-you will be yearning for a "high silled" Elise S1!

Again I agree. But there is something missing that is stopping the people who'll happily take out a £100k lease on a mass produced generic performance car from taking a £70k lease out on an Evora. It's missing something and I do think that is an image problem.

Aston use fibreglass in their bodies but they refer to it as advanced composite. Plenty of sports cars use engines from massed produced family cars, few have their own.

Lotus have fked up if people still think of the engine as being a Toyota and the body a canoe. It's a failure of marketing. They need to hire a professional turd polisher who understands what the mainstream buyer wants to hear, not what the reality is.

Just about their biggest glaring failure over the last decade was not to pin their 'add lightness' mantra to the green revolution and peg the Evora as the environmentalists super car. We don't have electric seats because they kill kittens. We don't use electric roofs because they melt the ice caps etc. any smart marketer takes the weaknesses and pitches them as strengths.

We don't need big cc engines because our cars aren't for men with small willys. We don't need loads of computers because our cars aren't for men who are weak and effeminate.

Lotus doesn't know how to come out fighting. Their cars can run rings around the mass produced stuff. They need to learn to step up and shout about it. If you can't get our car round a track quicker than a 911 you can't drive. That sort of stuff.

Lotus marketing is pathetic. Plenty of firms sell crap products in volume because they spin the marketing correctly.

JLR are genius with the 'it's good to be bad'. Bond may drive an Aston but a good bond film is defined by the villain. You can't get Bond into your car so get the villains into them. JLR have taken a stigma of their product and spun it to be a marketing win.

[AlanH1]

The thing Lotus need to do is get people in the cars driving them to see what they are all about. More importantly they can experience things for themselves rather than go on a journalists opinion. I was put off buying an Elise for a couple of years after reading an article which turned out to be just plane wrong.

[Claudia Skies]

DonkeyApple said:

Their cars can run rings around the mass produced stuff.

Customer appeal is what's needed to sell cars. Jeremy Clarkson setting fire to the tyres on a track - doesn't.

[DonkeyApple]

Claudia Skies said:

DonkeyApple said:

Their cars can run rings around the mass produced stuff.

Customer appeal is what's needed to sell cars. Jeremy Clarkson setting fire to the tyres on a track - doesn't.

Clarkson sells more cars than anyone else on this planet.

[kambites]

It is customer appeal which sells cars, but these days that seems to be more a case of persuading customers to want what you're selling rather than trying to build what customers think they want. Lotus are very poor at this.

[SidewaysSi]

Claudia Skies said:

DonkeyApple said:

Their cars can run rings around the mass produced stuff.

Customer appeal is what's needed to sell cars. Jeremy Clarkson setting fire to the tyres on a track - doesn't.

Oh I think JC has more power than you think. He did help Caterham sell the R500 and increase their brand recognition and Lotus do need to do the same. It's a bit risky though-all you need him to do is to say he can't get in and out and it would likely affect things.

I think he damaged sales of the Chrysler Crossfire and don't think the Lexus thing will do much better.

DonkeyApple-I entirely agree. Lotus-think you are hard enough? Etc.

Not sure where the marketing budget is likely to come from right at this moment in time though. If they can get some preferable lease deals that should help too I would have thought? Surely with the cars' minimal depreciation, that should be relatively simple? As long as they managed supply/demand etc.

An Evora for less than an AMG or little more than a Golf R should work.

[DonkeyApple]

SidewaysSi said:

Oh I think JC has more power than you think. He did help Caterham sell the R500 and increase their brand recognition and Lotus do need to do the same. It's a bit risky though-all you need him to do is to say he can't get in and out and it would likely affect things.

I think he damaged sales of the Chrysler Crossfire and don't think the Lexus thing will do much better.

DonkeyApple-I entirely agree. Lotus-think you are hard enough? Etc.

Not sure where the marketing budget is likely to come from right at this moment in time though. If they can get some preferable lease deals that should help too I would have thought? Surely with the cars' minimal depreciation, that should be relatively simple? As long as they managed supply/demand etc.

An Evora for less than an AMG or little more than a Golf R should work.

Some marketing can be very cheap. Having the cars seen in London in the right places at the right time, driven by the right people is cheap.

Or, offer an amazing all expenses track weekend and 5* hospitality to all 911 owners who can show that they've been on 5 or more track days and then announce in the press that it is cancelled because there weren't enough Porsche owners with any actual driving experience.

Twitter campaign to lend them out to YOLO types who are brave enough to drive something that isnt a German utility stbox.

[AW111]

Are Lotus selling too cheap?
If you look at what people pay for Mansoury / Kahn / Twisted bling, maybe Lotus could go up in price rather than down.

Pitch it as a "premium sports car", throw in a track day pack or similar, maybe an annual 'ring trip, and go the exclusive route at say 15% over current prices.
Add in a serious (ie Japanese / Korean) warranty for piece of mind.

And as someone posted earlier, make a virtue out of everything it hasn't got.

Even the Toyota engine shouldn't be a drawback, maybe they could raid the TRD parts bin for some blingy bits and call it a TRD engine (I don't think Lexus branding would help)

[Claudia Skies]

DonkeyApple said:

Some marketing can be very cheap. Having the cars seen in London in the right places at the right time, driven by the right people is cheap.

Have you been to the Lotus store on Regent St? They don't bother to show their cars amongst the piles of union jack cushions and other over-priced tat.

[SidewaysSi]

Claudia Skies said:

DonkeyApple said:

Some marketing can be very cheap. Having the cars seen in London in the right places at the right time, driven by the right people is cheap.

Have you been to the Lotus store on Regent St? They don't bother to show their cars amongst the piles of union jack cushions and other over-priced tat.

Much like Ferrari I presume.

[Claudia Skies]

SidewaysSi said:

Much like Ferrari I presume.

No point trying to apply the icing until you've baked the cake! Spyker made that mistake and look where they ended up.

[otolith]

SidewaysSi said:

Much like Ferrari I presume.

Exactly what Bahar did at Ferrari.

[unpc]

AW111 said:

Aspirational.

HTH

FFS Donkey, you've been told once already. It's aspirational.

[Jellinek]

Well, is this the beginning of the end for Lotus? There are reports in the press that Proton has signed a deal with something called Goldstar Heavy Industrial Co, (a manufacturer of buses ffs) to build "Lotus branded" vehicles out of China. Couple that with the announcement that the Proton board is close to signing off a Lotus four door saloon / SUV and I would say it is pretty nailed on that the marque will never recover. Just take a moment to think about that, a saloon car using Proton mechanicals and built by a Chinese bus manufacturer with a Lotus badge on the front. The devaluation of the brand will be instantaneous. It does however now make sense that no Esprit replacement is planned and no new platforms are being developed at Hethel, as nobody could ever hope to peddle a supercar next to a 3rd rate sedan. Every indication is that the whole brand is being taken downmarket, particulary references to the 400 being a "true supercar" when everyone knows it is a Cayman competitor.
Lotus is unable to build a range of niche sports cars with enough appeal to sustain their business and this is supposed to be their core competancy. Now the management believe it can compete with VAG, BMW, PSA and others in the mass market segments which are going to be flooded with 30 grand Audis by 2017! I thought Bahar's plans were lunacy, but they were nothing in comparison to this. I truly despair at the news.

[swisstoni]

You could have had a good laugh about Tata a couple of years ago.

[leglessAlex]

SidewaysSi said:

It is the likes of PH, EVO etc that Lotus need to target (EVO does seem to be sponsored by Porsche) so that anyone reading knows just how bloody good at everything they are.

I think this is a little unfair on EVO. If you look at the EVO Car of the Year tests they do Lotus has won twice, the same amount as Ferrari and has been represented nine times in seventeen ECOTYs (again, the same amount as Ferrari). Yes, Porsche does have far higher numbers than that with nineteen representations and nine wins, but six of those wins were for a GT or GT RS car which by most accounts are brilliant drivers cars.

When you account for the number of different cars Lotus make compared to Ferrari and Porsche I think they do very well for themselves in these tests.

I don't think any amount of positive media is enough to change peoples minds about Lotus. I reckon the only thing that will change that perception is actually getting people to drive the things. More dealers, more demo cars. Even then they might not sell many, but hopefully enough to balance the books.