esprit

As I said in last night's piece, 'Why Lotus' future is far from safe', Proton has been working on securing a platform sharing deal with a major automotive partner.

After more than a decade of Elise-based production it’s easy to forget that Lotus was once known as a supercar maker, rather than purveyors of light-weight track-ready sports cars. Whilst many of us hold reservations about Lotus' New Era strategy, one point that cannot be argued against is that they needed a change of strategy.

Lotus surprised attendees at the Paris show today by unveiling not one, but five new models, rather overshadowing the Lotus Evora S and Evora Auto which also made their debut at the show. Four out of the five cars are completely new models (Elite, Elan, Esprit and Eterne) whilst Lotus also displayed a redesigned Elise, due to reach production in 2015. By then the Lotus Brand will be unrecognisable from today, with prices substantially higher and very different customer profile.