Scottish Elises

Just to provoke a bit of interest in this month's Autocar. The magazine has the new Lotus Esprit as cover car, and features an interview with Lotus' new CEO Mike Kimberley in which he discusses Lotus' response to the present market and his 5 year development plan; entailing the design of car's with wider appeal and increased unit production. The forthcoming launch of the Europa is also given mention along with plans for more 'lifestyle' Elise-based cars in attempt to rope in would-be TT/Boxster owners. 'Lifestyle' = easier ingress, more cabin space etc. For me, the word 'lifestyle' conjours up images of Ford's KA range, inclusive of 'StreetKA' and 'SportKA' in all their cheesy accessory laden glory.

The concept makes me uncomfortable, whilst Lotus' new direction will raise the marque's profile/appeal, my fear is that the traditional Chapman values will be compromised. A necessary response however in respect of consumer opinion and market competition in order to ensure the marque's survival.

Lotus = lifestyle = Chapman turning in his grave............

tut

greedyboythomson wrote:
The concept makes me uncomfortable, whilst Lotus' new direction will raise the marque's profile/appeal, my fear is that the traditional Chapman values will be compromised.

Nah, that's crept up on his over the last few years with the S2 Elise and Exige.

They just want to milk the brand. No one is interested in making small numbers of high tech but affordable race/track/fun cars cos they don't sell as well as the oppositions Focus ST/Golf GTI/etc.

It probably make sense to the bean counters but not the motoring enthusisats(sp) like us.

Can you imagine a TVR "lifestyled" car?

RICHARDHUMBLE wrote:They just want to milk the brand. No one is interested in making small numbers of high tech but affordable race/track/fun cars cos they don't sell as well as the oppositions Focus ST/Golf GTI/etc.

It probably make sense to the bean counters but not the motoring enthusisats(sp) like us.

Can you imagine a TVR "lifestyled" car?

tenkfeet wrote:

RICHARDHUMBLE wrote:They just want to milk the brand. No one is interested in making small numbers of high tech but affordable race/track/fun cars cos they don't sell as well as the oppositions Focus ST/Golf GTI/etc.

It probably make sense to the bean counters but not the motoring enthusisats(sp) like us.

Can you imagine a TVR "lifestyled" car?

Spec:

Huuuuge V8
Rear seats by Porshe
Reliability by Alfa Romeo
Trim by Ikea
Running costs by Delorian
Servicing by Murrays....

Lotus has old out a long time ago, the new heavier cars are a proof of that.

Some have said, good on them if that is going to allow them to make money so that they can build also the type of car we want.

Wake up and smell the roses, it's not going to happen anymore.
The Elise S1 is gone, part of a era. The next cars are going to have more and more luxuries and weight.


My next car is going to be a kit car.

Tis the price of progress....

Hopefully though engines will continue to get lighter and more powerful so the power to weight balence will remain possible.

I like the idea of a RX8 rotary powered Elise, 230bhp for 45kg! It's just the transmission that would be interesting....

i think to be 100% honest chapman would approve of this move.

The lotus 7 design was originally sold to caterham cars so that lotus could concentrate on more main stream cars. Also it was chapman that moved lotus towards the esprit as a supercar which was bigger and heavier then previous lotus cars.

I think what you must remember is that a lotus is still lighter and cleverer then anything else out there.

What will be intresting is if the Lotus trackcar that was knocking around in prototype form makes it to reality. As these fat lifestyle cars need an hardcore car knocking around to keep the brand image alive.

Look at landrover i am sure one of the reasons that the defender is still being built as it is the hardcore end of there range, so when someone pops into a showroom to buy their nice new freelander they are buying into the image of the defender.

So while the range gets bigger and fatter a few hardcore cars might come up.

As to TVR lifestyle cars erm i thought they already were high powered badly built cars that give the promise of fantastic on track performance but in fact they are a bit pants. Cars that are sold mostly on image and looks

If chapman was still alive, he wouldn't be running Lotus any more and would have served time for his part in the DeLorean fraud. He sold out long before anyone can claim Lotus have.
As far as the cars go, it's impossible to make a low cost car weigh as little as Lotuses of the past used to. Compared to the nearest competitors, Elises are still light it's just that all cars are now heavier due to increased safety/equipment.

simon wrote:As far as the cars go, it's impossible to make a low cost car weigh as little as Lotuses of the past used to. Compared to the nearest competitors, Elises are still light it's just that all cars are now heavier due to increased safety/equipment.

Oh, I think it's possible to build such a car, just not all that economic. Sooner or later Lotus might even build that car if the technology to build it comes within their grasp - if they made an S3 elise that was lighter than the S1 and had a sensible engine there would be a long list of people wanting to buy that car. The biggest challenge with such a car is getting it sold in the US, where cars have to have bumpers

Cheers,
Robin

That's what I meant about it being low cost. To make it low cost it would have to be subsidised some other way as the light materials needed are currently too expensive.

Autocar did feature an article with the Kimberely a month ago where he talked about going back to basics and looking at more lightweight Elise derivites......

I was hoping they might have figured out a way to get the S2 Exige down from its current 900kg's!

If Lotus set out to build an S1 weight S3 then they could and without going all space age / carbon fibre. The problem is that like all car manufacturers they get a formula which works and are reluctant to move from it. The S1 was the result of thinking outside the box, the S2 is just an evolved/middleaged/fat S1. What we need is a little mutation.

Rich, I like the idea of the Mazda rotary at 230 bhp (out the box?) and only 45 Kg. It’s surly not beyond Lotus to build a suitable transmission. I’ve also heard that you can replace normal Polyester resin with Epoxy resign and drop around 25% of the weight with an increase in strength and minimal increase in cost (in racing yachts) so why not body panels.

Graham