Lotus has dropped a note around to say that it is definitely staying headquartered in Potash Lane, Hethel, Norfolk, where it has been for 52 of its 66 years.
The East Anglian sports car maker, bought last year by China's Geely, also owner of Volvo, says it's not very keen on "idle speculation" (I think referring to this excellent column by our friends at Motor Sport), that it might be better off moving bits of its business elsewhere.
Lotus staff numbers hit a low of 806 late last year - they go up, they go down, depending on the company's prevailing fortunes - and while 100 more have been re-added in 2018, Lotus CEO Jean-Marc Gales already "plans to recruit up to 200 more".
Gales wants these to be "some of the best minds from the likes of Aston Martin, McLaren and Jaguar Land Rover", and I don't think it's idle speculation to suggest that such a task would be easier if Lotus were based on an industrial estate in the Midlands rather than one in Norfolk. But its Norfolk facility - for understandable reasons, up to and including its brilliantly surfaced test track and the terribly surfaced roads around it - remains location number one.
That doesn't rule out other facilities entirely, mind. Lotus needs engineers because under Geely ownership and Gales helmsmanship things are happening. The SUV has been signed-off
for development
, which will use modular Volvo systems, and which we expect to be built first and foremost in China.
A Lotus 4x4? Well, we're all used to sports car makers producing non-sports cars by now, and the truth is that Lotus - as Porsche, Lamborghini, Bentley, Aston Martin and maybe even Ferrari know - needs to build cars that people want to buy, and mostly they're tall ones.
The sports cars, though, will still be built in Britain. And that'll be in Norfolk. "So far, we have already committed to deliver two new models, designed and delivered from Hethel," says Gales. If Lotus can manage what Volvo did with Geely backing, I can't wait to see them.
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