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Our aim is to raise the Lotus brand equity back to its rightful place as it existed in the 1970s when it competed with the likes of Ferrari, Porsche or Aston Martin. Maintaining the unique Lotus DNA is crucial, but with more relevance, greater efficiency and even more sustainability than we have had in the past.
Lotus’s owner, the Malaysian automaker Proton, is getting tired of steady losses, and is giving the legendary British marque five years to become competitive with the top-rung of European sportscar houses. That means more volume (from 2,500 to 8k annual units in five years), more marketing and (almost certainly) less of the stripped-down enthusiast utilitarianism that keeps the brand so beloved by hardcore handling fans. Oh yes, and Lotus is reportedly getting one more thing that every brand overhaul needs: a little Maximum Bob Lutz.
Automotive News [sub] reports that Lutz and former BMW/Rolls exec Tom Purves have been offered jobs as advisers to the Lotus turnaround. Which means fans of Mr Maximum get a fresh opportunity for new quotable Lutzisms, and Lotus gets a chance to benefit from Bob’s keen insights into the look of luxury. Because Lotus has struggled without tasteful chrome window surrounds for far too long.
23 Comments on “Wild Ass Rumor Of The Day: Lutz To Lotus?...”
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Goodbye, Lotus.
Why do they feel like they need to be more mainstream? I don’t quite get that, Lotus has never been mainstream. If Proton wanted mainstream, why didn’t they purchase a dead GM brand like Saturn?
Maybe it might help if they actually redesigned their cars more than once in a century? Porsche has a new 911 every 18 minutes.
Uh…what planet might you be living on? Because here on the good ship Earth, there have been five (5) generations of 911…in forty-seven years of production. There might be a million and one trim and engine designations for each one, but they’ve still only gone beyond a mild facelift or a bit of engine bay meddling five times in the last half century, with the original iteration having more or less the same life span as the Berlin Wall.
Of all the examples to use, you pick *that* one?
The Guvna: that’s a decent example. Porsche is about the best mfr for the annual revisions. Not refreshes, but something small that the last year didn’t have, usually a trim level or some feature, not usually sheet metal. They get people talking about them and many of their opposite-of-rational buyer ponying up again.
Daga: Porsche is unquestionably a business model worth emulating. After all, no other car company has so successfully convinced their customers to pay extra (and then some…) for options that ought to be taken for granted as standard at their starting price point. It tends to falter in times of recession—case in point, Porsche having been in very real danger of going under in the early 1990s—but if you can build your cars in significant enough volume, and maintain that all important air of exclusivity for your brand, you will likely find yourself in good fiscal health far more often than not.
But the OP made reference to Lotus failing to redesign their cars “more than once a century”. Those are two separate things. Case in point, one could argue that beyond mere evolutionary changes, Porsche hasn’t significantly redesigned the 911 since its inception (mechanically, obviously, is a different matter. What they’ve done under the 911’s skin is nothing less than witchcraft). The problem wasn’t the product life cycle, per se. The problem was, and is, and likely always will be (much to the consternation of the Malaysians in charge, I’m sure) that Lotus is a niche manufacturer. They make a handful of cars, very much in an old-timey handcrafted-in-a-shed sort of way (if you happen to be in Norfolk at any point, incidentally, I highly recommend taking the Lotus factory tour). They may compete with the likes of Porsche and Ferrari in theory, but they haven’t had a genuine competitor since the heyday of the Esprit. They make sports cars. Small, nimble, wonderful sports cars. They may be light years beyond, say, Morgan in terms of innovation and production range, but while their niche may be larger, it’s still a niche. Wanting to change that is understandable, but moving away from the Elise, for instance, is probably not the way to do it. They can’t get away with giving their Barbie a new hat and calling it revolutionary the way Porsche does. And when they try, as with the Europa and the Evora, it never really works. Good though the cars may be, they’re just not good enough to be game changers. And without Porsche money, that won’t change.
The Elise was the volume car that saved them from biting it around the same time that the Boxster was saving Porsche’s bacon. But in order for it to be anything other than a tiny niche market car in America, for instance, you would pretty much have to turn it into something that it is not. An engine upgrade before now would have helped a little, but I’m not convinced it would have garnered the Elise Boxster-esque sales numbers. Most Americans wouldn’t buy an Elise at $50,000 in big numbers unless they found a way to shoehorn a SBC V8 into it. It is what it is, and it’s the perfect summation of what Lotus does extraordinarily well. But I can’t help but think that trying to turn it into a volume car maker is going to push them too far afield from their entire raison d’etre. That same complaint is one often leveled at Porsche these days, but Porsche always has been significantly more ambitious than Lotus—witness the 928, the kind of departure from their norm that Lotus could only dream of.
I like to believe that a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, but if a car as good as the Elise didn’t turn Lotus into Britain’s Porsche, I really don’t know what would. Proton should probably just sell it to a well-heeled Englishman with a beard and a pipe and be done with it. It will likely save them years of additional frustration.
Proton bought an English car maker that focused on building low-displacement niche sports cars and they didn’t expect to lose money?
You probably could have saved a few key strokes on that question.
Proton bought an English car maker that focused on building low-displacement niche sports cars and they didn’t expect to lose money?
This just makes plain how inappropriate Lotus’ ownership structure is. Proton and Lotus have no real connection.
Lotus would be much better off owned by either:
a) a large automaker that could lend Lotus its technology (e.g. small, lightweight high powered engines), or
b) a conglomerte which is expert at brand management, like LVMH or a large alcoholic beverage firm
Poor Colin must be turning in his grave.
GM (!) did own Lotus in the late 80’s/early 90’s.
GM must not be good at your (a) or (b)
Lotus would be much better off .. DEAD
Lend? Really? Lotus actually makes consulting and engineering for Big automakers.
It would be a real shame if Lotus went bye-bye.
I’m not so sure that Chapman’s spinning. Though he unquestionably identified Lotus with himself, he was also willing to sell the whole company to Ford during the 1960s. Though, as he did with his shareholders, he probably figured he’d get Hank the Deuce to put up some money while ACBC still ran the show.
Also, much as lightness was Chapman’s obsession, so was cost, as seen in the way Lotus scavenged components from other manufacturers to avoid the cost of making their own. So you can’t really say that Lotus road cars were built with a single minded focus, with purpose designed and built parts.
Chapman would occasionally diverge from his mantras about weight and simplicity. The four wheel drive Indy and F1 cars he tried to get to work were both complicated and built with little concern for weight.
Some chrome window frames should be all it takes to make Lotus a success.
+1 ChesterChi. That and a big ass small block ought to be about right in an Evora. Oh yeah, and a healthy dose of retro, perhaps styling that evokes the Europa.
Makes sense. Next step: a merger under equals with Morgan, to acquire a reliable business model.
Bob Lutz……. Lotus announces new sedan………..V8 rear wheel drive……….. Imported from Australia…………We will make millions……….(sorry Vauxhall, Lotus has a competitor to your VRX8) Bob says no conflict, she’ll be right mate!
FWIW, Lotus had a sedan on the drawing boards when Chapman died. I think the code name was something like M90, and it looked like a less radical Aston Martin Lagonda. The Lotus designed and built V8 engine that they ended up putting in the Esprit was originally designed for that sedan.
Hey! Maybe Bob will answer his own CTS-V challenge!
If I remember correctly,the Elan was as much as a corvette when introduced.and terribly fragile.
Kudos to those that want the Lotus of old ..or new, to survive but when I see the price on a new one???
In my opinion Lotus needs to do a reality check!REALLY how many drivers are going to part with that amount of cash?I`m surprised they are still alive at all.
Either make a $100,000.00 sports car or make a
$25000.00 sports car…
They cant make it with a $25000.00 car that sells for fifty…unless they have the funds…which they DONT!
Are Proton on really losing money owning Lotus?
My understanding was that Lotus was very successful at production engineering and chassis tuning for other car companies such as GM, and that this more than made up for any losses from building Elises etc.
Maybe MaxBob will bring the tooling for the Saturn/Opel Sky with him!
An extremely tiny roadster that manages to be over 3000 lbs wearing a Lotus badge would be a travesty. That was a GM product through and through.