Click on the photo to read Autocar's story about Proton's announcement on the future of Lotus. Gone is Colin Chapman's philosophy of lightness and simplicity, and in comes aspirations of selling fancy, upmarket, luxury £100,000 cars. There are even plans to introduce a city car - Aston Martin's Cygnet is surely crass enough, but at least it's based on the fairly marvellous Toyota iQ. A Proton Lotus city car? Don't make me retch.
I posted some thoughts many months ago about the Elise facelift - positing my opinion that Lotus seems to think it's Ferrari - all but confirmed by the latest announcements. And of course, Michael posted this story last month about Lotus' ideas for lightweight cars in the future. Clearly a pamphlet of lies.
Thing is, we already have a Ferrari. From Italy. A Ferrari from Malaysia is going to take a while to become quite as glamorous and exciting, why not stick with 50 years of heritage from being Lotus of Norfolk? The problem for Lotus has been a lack of investment for years, not of engineering nous and a great philosophy. So many cool concepts and ideas have not come to fruition - where's the new Esprit, a sportier grand tourer to rival the Rapide?
With not even the merest hint of melodrama, it's a sad day, methinks.
Suzanne Denbow
Carl
Jameson Riley
Derek Kreindler
Brian Makse
Brian Driggs
Andrew Meehan
Martin Gearhead
Akeem Adeniji
roundabout
Michael Banovsky
