RE: Dany Bahar: terminated
Discussion
DonkeyApple said:
It's an important part of their history. ProDrive seemed to steal this market off them a bit. I raised this in another thread. form a division which behaved like Scnizter, RUf or Brabus etc.
The question would be what car of the people would be the smart choice?
Would you use a Ford or Vauxhall these days or something else?
I agree wholeheartedly, which is why either Nissan or Toyota would be the best buyer for Lotus.The question would be what car of the people would be the smart choice?
Would you use a Ford or Vauxhall these days or something else?
In order to be like AC Schnitzer, Ruf or Brabus, the car they tweak needs a degree of prestige about it so it'll sell to the guys in the chalkstripe suits who'll drive it right up your arse in the outside lane of the motorway, arrogantly flashing their headlights and making coffee-grinding gestures because you dare to merely do 90 when they've got a meeting/coronary to get to and they'd rather do 130. These guys don't buy Fords.
The market for fiddling with the German prestige stuff is swamped. Even with the in-house tuners you've already got BMW's M-division, AMG in-house at Mercedes and Audi's RS cars. VW makes 'R' versions of the Golf and Scirocco too, plus they've got access to whatever wing of VAG takes their whim. And that's before we get to AC Schnitzer, Hartge, Brabus, Koenig, ABT Sportline, Alpina and the like.
But their Japanese rivals? OK, so there are some 'F' versions of Lexus but while they're good the M3's hardly quaking in its boots. Infiniti has been something of a damp squib over here but the cars are mightily uninspiring waft-o-tronic barges. If they wanted to, they could make them comfy, upmarket, acceptable-anywhere GTRs in drag (and of course Lotus sorted the GTR's suspension settings out in the first place).
Lotus-Lexus or Lotus-Infiniti would give the Japanese genuine challengers in the supersaloon market. Also, the technology developed there would make their sports cars more reliable and acceptable to a mass market.
I've been saying for ages that what Lotus needs is the plan Colin Chapman had arranged with Toyota back in 1982 before his death, that the two firms should work together. Either Toyota or Nissan will do, but under either Lotus would become to them what Ferrari is to Fiat.
Either that or Mazda. If they're taking on Alfa Romeo (which is looking distinctly likely), you could have a jointly-developed roadster available as a Mazda MX5 (low-powered, cheap and cheerful roadster), Alfa Romeo Spider (high-powered, stylish luxury roadster) and Lotus Elan (high-powered, lightweight roadster). With that taking cars of volume sales for Lotus, development could focus on the Exige as a track-day nutter's car, the Evora as a kind of British 911 GT2 (it seems racers are lapping up the hotter race-ready variants quite readily even if the public are glossing over the ordinary cars), and the Esprit as an answer to the 458.
Twincam16 said:
DonkeyApple said:
It's an important part of their history. ProDrive seemed to steal this market off them a bit. I raised this in another thread. form a division which behaved like Scnizter, RUf or Brabus etc.
The question would be what car of the people would be the smart choice?
Would you use a Ford or Vauxhall these days or something else?
I agree wholeheartedly, which is why either Nissan or Toyota would be the best buyer for Lotus.The question would be what car of the people would be the smart choice?
Would you use a Ford or Vauxhall these days or something else?
In order to be like AC Schnitzer, Ruf or Brabus, the car they tweak needs a degree of prestige about it so it'll sell to the guys in the chalkstripe suits who'll drive it right up your arse in the outside lane of the motorway, arrogantly flashing their headlights and making coffee-grinding gestures because you dare to merely do 90 when they've got a meeting/coronary to get to and they'd rather do 130. These guys don't buy Fords.
The market for fiddling with the German prestige stuff is swamped. Even with the in-house tuners you've already got BMW's M-division, AMG in-house at Mercedes and Audi's RS cars. VW makes 'R' versions of the Golf and Scirocco too, plus they've got access to whatever wing of VAG takes their whim. And that's before we get to AC Schnitzer, Hartge, Brabus, Koenig, ABT Sportline, Alpina and the like.
But their Japanese rivals? OK, so there are some 'F' versions of Lexus but while they're good the M3's hardly quaking in its boots. Infiniti has been something of a damp squib over here but the cars are mightily uninspiring waft-o-tronic barges. If they wanted to, they could make them comfy, upmarket, acceptable-anywhere GTRs in drag (and of course Lotus sorted the GTR's suspension settings out in the first place).
Lotus-Lexus or Lotus-Infiniti would give the Japanese genuine challengers in the supersaloon market. Also, the technology developed there would make their sports cars more reliable and acceptable to a mass market.
I've been saying for ages that what Lotus needs is the plan Colin Chapman had arranged with Toyota back in 1982 before his death, that the two firms should work together. Either Toyota or Nissan will do, but under either Lotus would become to them what Ferrari is to Fiat.
Either that or Mazda. If they're taking on Alfa Romeo (which is looking distinctly likely), you could have a jointly-developed roadster available as a Mazda MX5 (low-powered, cheap and cheerful roadster), Alfa Romeo Spider (high-powered, stylish luxury roadster) and Lotus Elan (high-powered, lightweight roadster). With that taking cars of volume sales for Lotus, development could focus on the Exige as a track-day nutter's car, the Evora as a kind of British 911 GT2 (it seems racers are lapping up the hotter race-ready variants quite readily even if the public are glossing over the ordinary cars), and the Esprit as an answer to the 458.
Interestingly, as the MX5 really seems to be the daddy of their segment why not do a Lotus version?
DonkeyApple said:
So, a Prodrive division attached to a specific high volume, global manufacturer, a Noble equivalent and then a conventional division which concentrates on taking a large slice of the track day market at one end and taking on conventional Porsches at the other?
Interestingly, as the MX5 really seems to be the daddy of their segment why not do a Lotus version?
Precisely. Given that the MX5 wouldn't really exist if it wasn't for the Elan, it's not a million miles out.Interestingly, as the MX5 really seems to be the daddy of their segment why not do a Lotus version?
It would also make sense re. the structure the new car will have. The MX5 and new Spider will by necessity have the same chasses, but totally different body panels, so at one point during their construction you'll have the basic engine-less shell of the car on a production line at Hiroshima, constructed to the highest Japanese standards.
No doubt the MX5s will stay in-house, and the ones destined to be Spiders will be sent to Pininfarina or Italdesign to be clothed and fitted with engines.
So what about some of those chassis being sent to Lotus? Lotus would fit a glassfibre body, keep the interior as minimal as they dare and fit the hottest version of the engine available (the Alfa Romeo 1750 TBI Veloce) with extra tuning on top, with cruising refinement not as much of a priority as it would be for Alfa.
Lotus would hardly have to do anything and yet the car would have more in common with the Elan (and therefore more appeal for enthusiasts as well as anyone buying one for 'retro' reasons, which is, let's face it, a massive market) than many Lotuses since. It would also stick to the Lotus principle. It would provide Lotus with a volume-seller without them having to shell out on a massive factory.
Lotus could tune the Mazda range as well (imagine a Mazda Lotus-6!). Mazda has quite a good image for this - it's sort-of where Peugeot was in the '80s and '90s, definitely a cut above Ford and Vauxhall, not quite with BMW but could be potentially if the right work was done.
I have a feeling we'll see jointly-engineered Mazdas and Alfas from hereon in. The Spider is the start - Marchionne's been looking to sell Alfa to the right people for ages - so the new Mito will be a 2, the new Giulietta a 3, the forthcoming Giulia probably a 6 - but with Alfa's own suspension, cylinder head technology and styling applied inside and out.
But with Lotus on board too, the new conglomerate could have a whole new blood-spitting high-performance wing. Mazda for the bread-and-butter, Alfa for the sporting luxury, Lotus for the out-and-out sport and special projects.
I can't see any large, established manufacturer pandering to the nostalgia of Lotus enthusiasts if they bought the company. The value is in the engineering consultancy, and maybe a halo model that could part-share with a similar model in their lineup (like the Toyota-Subaru deal).
Mazda don't need to feed a Lotus Elan/Elise mashup with the MX5 - the payback wouldn't be worth the costs. It'd be much more effective for them to just stick a Lotus badge on an existing MX5 and have the guys at Hethel play with the suspension setup a bit.
The effort of resurrecting Lotus as a brand with a range of models is not worth it if you already have a range of cars in your stable that sell. A better owner would be someone who wanted to get into the car business and was willing to meet the costs of doing so - so Triumph, JCB or even DRB-Hicom if they choose that path rather than Nissan or Mazda.
Mazda don't need to feed a Lotus Elan/Elise mashup with the MX5 - the payback wouldn't be worth the costs. It'd be much more effective for them to just stick a Lotus badge on an existing MX5 and have the guys at Hethel play with the suspension setup a bit.
The effort of resurrecting Lotus as a brand with a range of models is not worth it if you already have a range of cars in your stable that sell. A better owner would be someone who wanted to get into the car business and was willing to meet the costs of doing so - so Triumph, JCB or even DRB-Hicom if they choose that path rather than Nissan or Mazda.
Bahar suing for wrongful dismissal, Lotus advisory council dissolved
http://www.bilanz.ch/unternehmen/dany-bahar-entlas...
(I think - my Swiss German isn't great, but a combination of online translation and dictionaries leads to those words)
http://www.bilanz.ch/unternehmen/dany-bahar-entlas...
(I think - my Swiss German isn't great, but a combination of online translation and dictionaries leads to those words)
The Japanese are extremely unlikely to buy the likes of Lotus.
Toyota are a conglomerate, they don't buy companies, they build them. They had the cash and production capabilities to buy jaguar, Rolls etc in the 90s, but what did they do? Bulod up a brand for the segment called Lexus.
They have a moderately succesful in house racing and engineering business so have no need for that side of Lotus either.
Nissan is to all intents and purposes owned by Renault. Why would Renault want to let Nissan have another rival to Renault Sport? It is planning to launch its own cars if I remember correctly. Also Nissan has Nismo for racing engineering.
Japanese companies rarely buy other firms. Its just not in their corporate psyche.
More likley is a Korean firm or as I've said before TATA. TATA is a good fit, and I really hope its them who buy it. Look wha they've doen with JLR. Now thats a success story.
What they need before all that happens is an MD/CEO who recognises that Lotus is a fairly unique animal now though. Its a sports car firm (name one of them), not a supercar manufacturer or the maker of track day specials. This is the trap that the firm fell into under the past two MDs. They had a niche, they just forgot to fill it.
Toyota are a conglomerate, they don't buy companies, they build them. They had the cash and production capabilities to buy jaguar, Rolls etc in the 90s, but what did they do? Bulod up a brand for the segment called Lexus.
They have a moderately succesful in house racing and engineering business so have no need for that side of Lotus either.
Nissan is to all intents and purposes owned by Renault. Why would Renault want to let Nissan have another rival to Renault Sport? It is planning to launch its own cars if I remember correctly. Also Nissan has Nismo for racing engineering.
Japanese companies rarely buy other firms. Its just not in their corporate psyche.
More likley is a Korean firm or as I've said before TATA. TATA is a good fit, and I really hope its them who buy it. Look wha they've doen with JLR. Now thats a success story.
What they need before all that happens is an MD/CEO who recognises that Lotus is a fairly unique animal now though. Its a sports car firm (name one of them), not a supercar manufacturer or the maker of track day specials. This is the trap that the firm fell into under the past two MDs. They had a niche, they just forgot to fill it.
Tuna said:
I can't see any large, established manufacturer pandering to the nostalgia of Lotus enthusiasts if they bought the company.
Absolutely right, and a big "IF". Tuna said:
Mazda don't need to feed a Lotus Elan/Elise mashup with the MX5 - the payback wouldn't be worth the costs. It'd be much more effective for them to just stick a Lotus badge on an existing MX5 and have the guys at Hethel play with the suspension setup a bit. The effort of resurrecting Lotus as a brand with a range of models is not worth it if you already have a range of cars in your stable that sell.
Yes.Tuna said:
A better owner would be someone who wanted to get into the car business and was willing to meet the costs of doing so - so Triumph, JCB or even DRB-Hicom if they choose that path rather than Nissan or Mazda.
Yes. Although regrettably that begs the question who would be daft enough to try to knock Ferrari, Lamborghini and Porsche off their perches from a standing start. I really hope Lotus Cars can survive but it's difficult to be optimistic. Such opportunity as the company had to develop new cars may have expired with the under-styled and over-priced Evora. The mere fact that it was completely ignored in Bahar's new vision for the company tells it all. Exige S is a toy for the trackday enthusists, not a road car, and might tick the factory along for a few weeks at best. Mikeyboy said:
More likley is a Korean firm or as I've said before TATA. TATA is a good fit, and I really hope its them who buy it. Look wha they've doen with JLR. Now thats a success story.
That'd work actually. Lotus has worked with Jaguar on engine technology (and IIRC lightweight aluminium platforms), plus it's not like Jaguar and Lotus clash with each other.Only thing is, no doubt they'd have to drop the Toyota engines in favour of Jaguar ones. How would a Jag V6 perform in an Exige or Evora? And what would end up in the Elise? The 240bhp 2-litre four-cylinder engine from the Evoque Dynamic, I'd guess.
Gassing Station | General Gassing | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff