Lotus Production To Resume Shortly

Lotus and Proton owner DRB-Hicom has invested into Lotus againto ensure production will ramp up again within the next few days.

This is good news for the British sports car maker, as production had been halted while the parent company took over the business. The factory at Hethel was in a frozen state as no funds had been flowing while the sale went through, and while DRB-Hicom investigated all its options.

More importantly, it means that money will be invested into creating the new Esprit, and into developing the inhouse-built V8 powertrain. Especially helpful is a Proton executive being placed as a go-between for Lotus and DRB-Hicom. The unnamed executive is said to know Lotus’s position and will help to secure future funding, as well as reporting favourably for the company to DRB-Hicom.

Lotus CEO, Danny Bahar, also denied reports by the BBC that Lotus was being prepared to be sold to a Chinese company.

“It’s just not true,” he told UK mag Autocar. “There is no fire sale, no selling process and no bidding. If there were, lots of strange people would be here doing inspections and due diligence, but there is nobody. Besides, I have no authority to sell the company. That’s a job for the shareholders. I am just an employee.”

“The past four months have been really tough for us,” Bahar continued. “We were working at a pace nobody had seen at Lotus for many years, so the shut-down, as I call it, was very hard for us. It is still not good, but it is where we are. My job is to convince our shareholders — and critics — that we can build a successful business here. But I’m feeling a lot happier now than I was a month ago.”

 

I think the esprit concept looks fab...Looking forward to seeing it.

 

Good stuff! He'd be happy to hear this!

 

^
Cheesin'.

 

love the concept. any change of that put in production soon?

edit: just the saw the back...what the hell happened back there