Lotus Goes (to) Hollywood

As revealed at the Paris auto show, Lotus has created five extremely compelling concept cars in just the past twelve months. The Lotus Esprit is the closest to fruition, a midengine sports car with a 612-hp 5.0-liter Lexus V8. The Lotus Elan is a midengine 2+2 with a 4.0-liter, 444-hp Toyota V6 due in late 2013. The Lotus Elise is a midengine 2-seater with a turbocharged 2.0-liter 316-hp Toyota inline-4 scheduled for 2015. The Lotus Elite is a front-engine 2+2 with a 612-hp 5.0-liter Lexus V8 due in early 2014. And the Lotus Eterne is a front-engine four-door sedan with a 612-hp 5.0-liter Lexus V8.

As Group Lotus chief designer Danato Coco explains, all the cars share a front facia inspired by the square nose and front wings of the Lotus 78 Formula 1 car, the F1 car that popularized ground-effect aerodynamics and led to the Lotus 79 with which Mario Andretti won the F1 drivers championship in 1978. This look brings the cars dignity and authority, he says.

 It seems impossible to develop so many cars simultaneously, but Group Lotus CEO Dany Bahar says that all the cars are derived from the modular architecture developed by Lotus for the current Lotus Elise, making the program cost-effective (Bahar notes that it usually takes about $240 million to develop a car from scratch). Moreover the Lotus factory at Hethel in the United Kingdom will be totally refurbished and the plan is to build between 6,000 and 8,000 cars per year with the mix being determined by sales, a manufacturing flexibility made possible by the modular vehicle architecture of the cars.

 At the same time, the well-known Lotus test track at Hethel (which began life as an RAF aircraft runway) will be rebuilt to F1 specifications for both vehicle development and speed events for Lotus owners. Bahar also has in mind a private racing series featuring purpose-built F1-style Lotus cars and says the company will continue to be involved in F1 and Indy cars. Like executives at Ferrari, Bahar believes a total brand experience is more effective than advertising, and the emphasis on Lotus's racing heritage is part of the program. He has also hired away Ferrari's entire brand merchandising group to support his efforts, a team that did $100 million of business for the Italian sports car maker last year.

The plan developed by former Ferrari executive Bahar is not exactly magic, as it follows the formula first formalized by Luca di Montezemolo at Ferrari and since copied to great effect by Aston Martin under Ford's ownership, by Bugatti under Volkswagen's direction and Lamborghini under Audi's leadership. What makes the plan seem possible in these times is its comprehensive and soundly organized nature, extremely qualified executives formerly with Ferrari, Fiat, Mercedes-Benz AMG and Porsche, plus the deep pockets of Proton, the Malaysian car company that has owned Lotus since 1994.

It's hard to say if times are right for the range of expensive and exclusive cars created by Group Lotus in the last 12 months, especially since Lotus is casting aside the youth-oriented owners, dealers and car executives that have kept the brand alive for the last decade. At the same time, Lotus CEO Bahar notes that while the brand has an uncommon legitimacy that cuts across cultures from all over the world, years of chronic under-investment have led it into a financial cul de sac where it lacks the potential audience to survive as a car company. Drastic measures are required.

As former GM executive Bob Lutz - one of several famous, now-retired car executives brought in to bless the project as Group Lotus advisors -- said to us, "In my years as a military pilot, I learned that when you're faced with the choice of dying for certain and maybe not dying, it's best to take the chance on not dying every time."

--Michael Jordan, Executive Editor, Edmunds.com