Lotus Future In Jeopardy

[Elanlover]

Its not like this hasn't been said before but here's the current take on it.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/news ... -167m.html

[lotos]

IMHO Lotus just needs 3 or 4 models, and they can all be based on the same chassis. A sparse racer, the Elise. A hardtop version, the Exige. A more luxurious larger version, the Evora. And maybe a halo car with gobs of power selling in the £80-100k range. When they started to mess with this formula a few years ago (thanks Dany Bahar) they lost the plot in my opinion. They will never be Ferrari or Lamborghini. They will never be Porsche. They are Lotus - less expensive cars than the competition with added lightness, small engines, and amazing handling. This plan kept development costs down, they had a beautiful design that was instantly recognizable as Lotus, and with the press generated by F1 right now (basically two teams..) they have great advertising every other Sunday.

That said, if they decided to do a small mainstream roadster designed for the street, I'll be looking into a 2nd mortgage Heck, they could even bring the Seven back into the fold and start calling them Caterhams by their real marque.

[inkitin]

[tigerdog]

The sad fact is, I already have the one Lotus I can afford. As much as would love to have an Evora as my daily driver, I'm reduced to Volkswagening. Short of hitting a jackpot somewhere, it's unlikely I'll be able to help them out of their miasma. I suspect many of the faithful are of the same mind. There's a great dichotomy between the classic enthusiast and a new generation of buyers. Jaguar, Bentley and even Mini have been able to reinvent their marques to appeal to a new purchasing audience, above and beyond the faithful enthusiasts. Not sure how Lotus would do the same without significant marketing and much better dealer support, at least here in the USA.