Are they selling?

Are they selling?

Author
Discussion

C43

666 posts

199 months

Tuesday 17th November 2009
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jesus if they did a 50% now and 50% in two years interest free I would buy one tomorrow.

Twit

2,908 posts

265 months

Tuesday 17th November 2009
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C43 said:
jesus if they did a 50% now and 50% in two years interest free I would buy one tomorrow.
Ask them, you may get close...

I suspect they are selling but quite slowly. There are about 25-26 for sale on this site, so on a launch-spec basis about 10% (prob a bit less) are for sale on here! I'm sure the rest have dribbled out... In my view its still too expensive and if you look across a whole range of forums etc the common view is great car but a bit steep, my guess is that the market thinks that too!

As for it being car of the year, I'm not a journalist so I don't know what the criteria is, but having driven both the Evora and the GT3, I know which one I would want... And its German, albeit about twice the price!

Edited by Twit on Tuesday 17th November 20:23

kevin ritson

3,423 posts

228 months

Tuesday 17th November 2009
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Twit said:
As for it being car of the year, I'm not a journalist so I don't know what the criteria is, but having driven both the Evora and the GT3, I know which one I would want... And its German, albeit about twice the price!
So at twice the price that's definitely too expensive

Twit

2,908 posts

265 months

Tuesday 17th November 2009
quotequote all
For me yes, I'm not in the market to splash the best part of 100k on a car, but generally no, not for the performance, heritage and experience. The GT models (3&2) really are a massive difference from the boggo 911s and turbos. And as has been said there is no shortage of takers so the market doesnt seem to think so either.

The evora is good, but not that good! Its great that Lotus have produced a car that has been so well recieved, even if it looks like it has been designed by three people who have never met!

What Lotus have to learn is how to market and launch a car properly. As with the Europa they cocked the Evora up! They launched at a motorshow a year before anyone could even get to touch the thing, so loosing any momentum they had. Then the dealers got the cars when Lotus could be bothered to give them the cars, EVERY dealer should have had the car at launch. And then they have just pitched into the wrong price band. 49K fully speced and it would have sold by the truckload and you certainly would not have seen 23 of them for sale on here - I assume they are the ones the dealers were forced to pre-reg; 58-65K fully speced is just a laugh for what you get!


Edited by Twit on Tuesday 17th November 22:34

Redlake27

2,255 posts

245 months

Wednesday 18th November 2009
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Redlake27 said:
A main dealer I called into was apathetic when I wanted to buy my Elise in 2001 and Europa in 2008.

However, since the launch of Evora I have had two offers of a test drive, an invitation to an open day and two calls to see if I want to p/x.

Either they have had a sales training course....or they are struggling.

Let's keep an eye on this one. I concluded the car is a fabulous £35+K car in the same way as I though the Europa was a great £25K car......I hope for Lotus' sake the market doesn't think the same as me.
To follow on from this, I've had another call even though I made it clear to the dealer last month I intended to wait for £20K of depreciation to kick in. I reiterated my earlier opinion that they had a great £35K car, so call me then.

Historically, I have the laziest local Lotus dealer. I never guessed a time would come that I hear from them so often!

footsoldier

Original Poster:

2,259 posts

193 months

Wednesday 18th November 2009
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They did the "end of line" special edition first, which is unusual! Also forgot that the thing to do is load them up and sell them at base price to get sales in, not load them up and sell at full price so that mags etc talk about a £60k car.

What they should do now is incentivise dealers to do good deals on all the unsold demos for sale, and create momentum. I haven't seen one with a "sold" tag on it since launch. Maybe it's because people prefer to spec their own car given a loaded demo is no cheaper and is not in colour, gearing etc that they want, but it's certainly not good advertising, and again is a self-created problem. Time to bite the bullet!

On positive side, and what counts, I still think the car itself is great, and a step forward in ride/handing balance combination over anything else.


Fittster

20,120 posts

214 months

Wednesday 18th November 2009
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footsoldier said:
What they should do now is...
What they should do is wait for the depreciation in sterling to sell the cars cheaply in Europe and the far east. They should be enjoying a significant advantage over German firms.

peter_england99

68 posts

234 months

Wednesday 18th November 2009
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I'm not sure that a depreciation Pound Sterling will help reduce the price. Tony Shute (Evora Program Manager) gave a talk on the Evora and pointed out that the car components are global (Engine/Yen, Assembly/Sterling, Body Panels/Euro, etc.), so if Sterling weakens, the assembly get cheaper, but the engine and body etc. get more expensive.

chandrew

979 posts

210 months

Thursday 19th November 2009
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As I think I noted before, the Evora is cheaper than the Cayman S in Switzerland. They also reduced Elise platform prices by about 8% in October.

Sharpy1975

22 posts

181 months

Wednesday 25th November 2009
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I think once people start specking their cars as opposed to launch spec, we will see more and more on the road and that will then have a snow ball effect.

Come on ..............................