Lotus News

For those lucky types seeking an alternative to a Porsche or something similar, there's now a tantalising Lotus drop-top to throw into the mix. It's the fastest-ever convertible Lotus that's due to lob here in time for summer. PERFORMANCE Called the Lotus Exige S Roadster, it combines open top driving with supercar performance and the ability to clock a 0-100 kmh sprint in four seconds, a tad more with the roof off. Sitting alongside the Exige S and its race track variants, the Exige Cup and Exige Cup R, the Exige S Roadster completes the Exige line-up and enhances the track focussed collection by providing a new facet to the range. Powered by the same supercharged 3.5-litre, V6 (toyota sourced engine) as the coupe variants and weighing in at 10kg less than the Exige S at 1166kg, none of the exhilarating performance of the exciting Exige range is compromised. The driver is only “two clicks and a roll” away from cruising in open-top style thanks to the lightweight, factory-fitted soft top. BARGAIN Launched in Australia earlier this year, the Lotus Exige S hardtop is priced at a Porsche beating price of $119,990 and provides a level of performance and handling that can only be described as a bargain at this price. Achieving 0-100 kmh from a standing start in 4.0 seconds, delivering 257.5kW at 7000 , the Exige S Roadster matches the coupe's mechanical spec' but style takes an understated approach having shed its rear wing and front splitter to maximise airflow over its sleek silhouette. The Exige S Roadster is the perfect car for a “joy” ride. Exige S Roadster is now available to order and full specifications and pricing will be announced when the new model arrives in the first quarter of 2014. The Exige S Roadster  Max Power: 257.5 kW at 7000 rpm Max Torque: 400Nm 4500 rpm 0 -100 km/h: 4.0 seconds Weight: 1166 kg Engine: Mid-mounted, transverse 3.5-litre, DOHC, V6 VVTi, 24-valve equipped with Harrop HTV 1320 Supercharger. Transmission: 6-speed manual with sports ratios. Suspension: Fully independent double wishbone suspension with front and rear anti-roll bar. Bilstein high performance gas dampers and Eibach coaxial springs. Brakes: AP-Racing four-piston calipers with ventilated and cross drilled cast-iron discs. Wheels and tyres: Lightweight cast alloy wheels (17 -inch front and 18-inch rear) clad with Pirelli P-Zero Corsa tyres.

When you think Lotus you're also supposed to think about adding lightness. It's the philosophy of Lotus founder Colin Chapman, and it was the ethos with which Lotus cars were designed, developed, and produced. One area Lotus doesn't want to be light in, is of course its own wallet. Thanks to a little bit of walking around money, the British sports car manufacturer and engineering firm might be able to breathe a little easier. According to a report from Autocar, Lotus is nearly ready to receive a cash injection of £10 million (about $15 million). This comes from a government program called the Regional Growth Fund (RGF), which is designed to help companies create new jobs and provide training. Giving Lotus a bit of this money shows that the automaker is prepping to move forward with new models and production. Apparently Lotus initially applied to receive funds via the RGF over two years ago. At that time the automaker was under the guidance of Dany Bahar, and we all know how that saga shook out. Now, under the leadership of a new management team, Lotus is ready to get its hands on the cash. Still, the actual amount of £10 million is under a bit of speculation. It was based on the initial application paperwork filed by Bahar. There could be new paperwork, or Lotus could've finally finished the process to receive its initial request. www.motorauthority.com  

The epitome of 1960s cool, the Lotus Elan sports car was featured in the television show The Avengers alongside the high kicking Emma Peel in skin tight leather cladding. The Elan was launched in October 1962 at the British Motor Show, just as the Sixties started swinging. Jaguar had launched the E-Type the previous year, AC had the Cobra and Ferrari the GTO. But the Elan was very different and typically Lotus ultra modern, lightweight, rapid and huge fun.  It was technically innovative with the first backbone tube chassis of any road car, a fibreglass body, four-wheel independent suspension, 670kg with a peachy power-to-weight ratio, bang up-to-date styling beloved by Kings Road cruisers and a liberating, rock n' roll attitude. The Elan came with luxuries that were a rarity at the time, like electric windows, carpets, a heater, and in vogue wooden fascia, but it was still light enough on the scales to outrun other automotive competition not to mention groupies. The Elan Sprint, a more powerful 1973 alternative, could hit 100km/h in 6.6 seconds, which even now would be considered respectably fast. Four different series were produced up until 1973, including a coupe version. The car was designed by Ron Hickman, who went on to make millions when he patented the Black & Decker WorkMate. He died last year, having earned an OBE for services to industrial innovation. The Elan was the design inspiration for the Mazda MX-5, which was one of the biggest selling sports cars of the 1990s.  

The addition -- coming as part of the Exiga’s mid-life revision – puts another possie in the middle of the second row, taking the original six-seater up a notch.The passenger in the new spot gets a proper three-point lap-sash seatbelt – the absence of which was the reason Subaru did not offer the seven-seat option when the Exiga first arrived three years ago.There are now also three sets of child-seat anchor points in the middle row. Other changes to the Liberty Exiga include a new door mirror design on all models and new 17-in alloy wheels for the Premium spec versions.The price remains at current levels, starting from $37,990 for the 123kW/229NM 2.5-litre Liberty Exiga 2.5i and from $42,490 for the Premium spec that adds features such as leather, foglights and window tinting.“Liberty Exiga will now appeal to even more families that need the option of a seventh seat, in addition to the significant cargo volume it offers for load carrying, with the seats down in a variety of combinations,” Subaru Australia managing director Nick Senior says. 

The shock news that its outspoken chief executive, flambouyant former Ferrari executive Dany Bahar, has been dumped came on the weekend from the new owners of Lotus, Malaysian conglomerate DRB-Hicom. Automotive News reported that Bahar has been temporarily suspended after "an operational review''. The review was sparked by an investigation made by unnamed sources into Bahar's conduct, the Automotive News says. Bahar's suspension comes on the heels of growing rumours about the future of the niche carmaker that, until this year was owned by Malaysian car manufacturer Proton. Lotus' future was further in doubt after accounting firm KPMG was said to be the intermediary in a sale of Lotus to a Chinese buyer. But Automotive News reports that a DRB-Hicom spokesman said it was "business as usual'' at the Lotus headquarters in the east-England county of Norfolk. He says that in Bahar's absence, three representatives of DRB-Hicom have been authorised to manage the group,. Bahar, a former Ferrari sales executive, joined Lotus in 2009 with ambitious plans to launch new products and quadruple annual car sales to 8000. DRB-Hicom bought Proton, the Malaysian parent company of Group Lotus, in January. Proton, a maker of sedans and taxis, bought control of Lotus in 1996, but has never made a profit from the British unit. Before Proton, Lotus's owners included General Motors. Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp - which has a joint venture with GM in China - has denied it is interested in buying Lotus.

In a repeat of the MG Rover fiasco, they fear up to 1,400 UK jobs could be lost and the 60-year-old business exported lock, stock and barrel to the communist People’s Republic.Lotus was sold 16 years ago to Malaysian car-maker Proton which developed and nurtured the firm.This year, it was on the brink of a massive £500million expansion when a new and bigger set of Malaysian owners – the industrial conglomerate DRB-Hicom – took it over.This business, however, is said to have little interest in making Lotus cars and has appointed City firm KPMG to find a potential Chinese buyer, Parliament has been told.DRB-Hicom insists no decision has been taken on Lotus’s future. But it will not rule out a sell-off.Lotus chief executive Dany Bahar, on a pay and bonus package worth £1.2million, had his employment extended in December, just a month before the Malaysian deal was revealed.It now includes a controversial bonus clause worth millions of pounds in the event of a sell-off which MPs were told means he is ‘incentivised to sell Lotus’.Conservative MP for South Norfolk Richard Bacon told Parliament up to 1,400 British jobs are at risk if the UK factory in Hethel, Norfolk, is dismantled and production moved to the Far East.Ministers pledged to ‘keep Lotus in Britain’ when Mr Bacon was granted a Commons’ debate on the issue late on Tuesday. Mr Bacon said: ‘The fact that KPMG has been appointed with a mandate to sell Group Lotus to the Chinese is not an encouraging sign.’Business Secretary Vince Cable raised concerns with Mr Bahar on Tuesday – less than a day after the car boss’s return from Beijing where he unveiled a new model specifically for China. The company has struggled to make a profit in recent years and it recorded pre-tax losses of £26.1million last year.Mr Bacon said industry experts have warned him of a ‘worst case scenario’ in which Group Lotus would be put into administration, allowing a Chinese buyer to acquire it cheaply – as happened when MG Rover collapsed in 2005, with the loss of 6,000 jobs. A rump of production was eventually resumed at the Longbridge plant two years later.Lotus strenuously denied suggestions that a ‘fire sale’ strategy was being contemplated, or that it could be put into administration, but bosses have not ruled out selling the firm.Group Lotus has ambitious five-year expansion plan for the Hethel plant, which would create 1,000 new jobs, and the Government rubber-stamped a £10million taxpayer-funded grant last year.But that regional growth fund grant is now on hold while Lotus’s new Malaysian owner decides its future.Prospective bidders are likely to include China Youngman, which has been Lotus’s importer in China for the last five year.Business Minister Mark Prisk said Lotus ‘must remain in Britain’, adding: ‘Ministers at the very highest level are taking this matter very seriously. We are working to make sure the new owners understand Norfolk is the home of Lotus.’The Government remains ready to press ahead with its £10million grant to Lotus – but only if the expansion plans for the UK go ahead.Norfolk Council leader Derrick Murphy said: ‘It is important we continue to press the case for the company as so many livelihoods depend on Lotus being based here in Norfolk.’Lotus said: ‘Dany Bahar remains totally committed to Lotus. His over-riding priority is securing the future of the company and protecting its employees.’E FOR ELITELotus was founded in 1952 by car engineer Colin Chapman with the help of a £50 loan from his wife HazelHis initials still form part of the marque’s badgeThe Lotus name is said to come from Chapman’s nickname for his wifeMost models begin with an E – a tradition started with the Lotus Eleven. Chapman liked the way the letter soundedHe died of a heart attack aged 54 in 1982. 

The space framing was revised which made it lighter, and when Team Lotus headed to LeMans in 1956 they won the race in their class with this quicker model.

The Proton-owned company aims to target the luxury small vehicle market with the City Car priced to battle the status and price of the Aston Martin Cygnet, and has followed that up by unveiling a World Vehicle Concept. Lotus recently announced its City Car would go on sale in the UK priced at around £2000 cheaper than the Cygnet – so somewhere under the equivalent of $45,000. And it says the World Vehicle Concept.would cost less than $10,000 if it ever came to market. It will also follow Aston’s rebadging example (the Cygnet is a Toyota iQ under the skin), with the City Car going on sale first as a Proton and later as a Lotus. It will be based loosely on the Ethos Concept seen at Paris motor show with an electric motor coupled to a 1.3-litre three-cylinder Lotus engine that will serve as a range extender – recharging the lithium-ion battery bank but never directly providing drive to the wheels. While the City Car is slated for sale in 2014, the World Vehicle Concept is for the moment just a computer-generated illustration of how Lotus imagines a high-volume, low-cost set of wheels. A report in Automotive Engineering International cited Lotus Engineering North America CEO Darren Somerset as saying the concept could be an answer to the wave of vehicles expected to come from China and possibly India. "You can see the proliferation of Chinese OEMs and Indian OEMs right now, so we believe there's going to be a big influx of very-low-cost cars into the US and into the European markets,” Somerset says in the AEI interview. “For all traditional OEMs, the way to offset the volumes that they'll lose will be to find very unique and clever ways of using technology to produce vehicles that are low cost in their own right.  “This concept represents a fun-to-drive, low-cost, back-to-basics commuter car that provides a practical, high-volume solution for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and improving fuel efficiency," said Somerset. The ultra-compact is packaged as a four-seater, but in a 1+2+1 configuration over three rows, with the rear wheels powered by a mid-mounted 37kW two-cylinder shaft-driven engine -- rather than a hybrid or electric. "If you have a carryover vehicle and you're trying to improve fuel efficiency and reduce emissions, a hybrid-electric application can do that. But it will also push the price of the vehicle up. What we're saying is for a ground-up product, start with the basic physics of engineering. And then optimize each area of the car that ultimately influences fuel efficiency and emissions," Somerset says. He indicated that if put into production, the car would aim to be competitive against Chinese and Indian vehicles, and likely have a price under $10,000.

Lotus, the sports and racing cars developed by Colin Chapman, was as British as a chip butty. So why is a Lotus Elan on display in the museum at Kia's R and D centre at Namyang, South Korea? Turns out Kia bought the licence to make the famous sports car after Lotus stopped building the Elan in 1995. So the red sports car in the museum really was, as its badge said, a Kia Elan. But unlike the original with a Lotus-Ford twin-cam 1558cc engine, or later models which used a 1.6-litre Isuzu motor, the Kia Elan was a home-spun 1.8-litre. It had a 113kW 'Hi-Sprint' 16-valve twin-cam engine of its own design, a lightweight reinforced plastic body and a five-speed gearbox. The neat two-seater could get to 100km/h in 7.4seconds and had a top speed of 220km/h. The first one came off the line was in July, 1996, but at W27.5million (about $30,000) the Elan was an expensive beastie at the time, and production stopped three years later after about 2000 were built. Still, it has the distinction of being Korea's first sports car and boasted 85per cent local content. They were sold only on the Korean domestic market. Kia started producing bike parts in 1944, built motorcycles from 1961 and started building and exporting light trucks (to Qatar) in 1974. Today it is Korea's second biggest car maker, for the past 30 years sole supplier of military vehicles to its army and a major exporter of cars, buses, trucks and military vehicles. This year Hyundai-Kia, which has a world-wide workforce of 120,000, will sell 2.3 million vehicles and earn $53 billion. And Lotus, after a romance with General Motors, is now owned by Proton.

The new Lotus Exige S, launched at this week’s Frankfurt motor show and in Australia early next year, picks up the Evora’s supercharged V6 engine and shoehorns it into the refreshed Exige’s 1080kg body. But the engine - a major upgrade on the 1.8-litre base engine - is only one of the Exige’s highlights. “It’s a lot less like a toy,’’ says Lotus PR head Alastair Florance. The redesign has made it look bigger and more aggressive.’’ It opens the door to the Exige R-GT which is Lotus’ new rally entrant. “There is a need to go back to rallying,’’ Florance says. It is necessary. We’ve been so successful in every motorsport arena - Le Mans to Indy, Formula One to rallying.’’ The R-GT goes for a shake-down year in 2012 and is expected to hit the circuits in 2013. It will participate in the newly-formed FIA GT category of the FIA Rally Championship on asphalt in San Remo, Tour de Corse and Monte Carlo. It gets the same 3.5-litre V6 engine as the Exige S but Lotus has made “significant’’ changes to the gearbox and the restrictors in the engine, Florance says. Lotus also showed its Evora GTE and has been stunned by demand. “We had plans to build a road car off the back of the GT racer and so the GTE was born,’’ Florance says. We planned 25 units at about (the equivalent of) $150,000 each. Immediately, we had 114 orders from China. So we’ve raised the production.’’ Other Lotus cars on show included a new Elise CR (club racer) with a 1.6-litre engine and robotised manual gearbox with steering wheel paddles; the Elise S that picks up a supercharged engine for 165kW/250Nm and a 0-100km/h time of 4.6 seconds. But following some notes in Carsguide recently about the Evora’s perceived quality, Mr Florance says big steps had been taken to improve the car. The results will be seen in the next shipment to Australia, but essentially there were 140 changes. “They’re small, but in total make a big difference,’‘ he says. They include improved leather interior trim with extra padding in the door insets and the seats, contrasting double stitching of the leather dashboard and improved door mechanisms. Lotus also showed its fuel-cell London taxi on which it did engineering work. A few of the cars will do duty as a taxi during the 2012 London Olympic Games. There was also the Evora 414E hybrid that has two electric motors producing 310kW/800Nm fed by lithium ion batteries that are charged by a Lotus-Fagor range extender engine. Lotus has designed two Fagor-built engines - a three-cylinder as fitted to the 414E - and a new two-cylinder unit that is more compact and can be mounted in virtually any position to power a battery pack. The sole 414E is regarded as a demonstrator but Lotus says it is keen to get more built for the road.