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Oh No. The Lotus group, makers of the Lotus Elise, Exige and Evora is rumoured to be in trouble. It seems that DRB-Hicom, the Malaysian conglomerate that owns Group Lotus' parent company, Proton may want to free itself from the wrangles of trying to turn around the sports car company. According to industry followers, notably F1 reporter Joe Saward, the management of DRB-Hicom somehow does not think that owning Lotus makes financial sense and may sell off its stake in Lotus to China Youngman, a company that already has ties with Proton. This news comes after the Lotus F1 team terminated a sponsorship agreement with Group Lotus but also stated that it had struck a five-year deal with Lotus

[extract] Lotus has unveiled photos (and specs) of two new Lotus Evora models ahead of their public debut at the upcoming Paris Motor Show. One of the models is the Lotus Evora IPS (Intelligent Precision Shift), which is Lotus marketing talk for something so dull and common called the

The 2010 Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance which will happen on the 15th of August is where Lotus will reveal another one of its new products. This unveiling of the Lotus Evora Cup GT4 race car is the second official press preview of a new specialty Lotus after the ground breaking totally track only T125 (no going to the market for groceries with this baby - a trackday car only for the track and nothing else). The car is part of its masterplan to have Lotus automobiles involved in multiple levels of motorsport like it did during the good old days under founder, Colin Champan. It seems Lotus seems to have suddenly dug up a large motorsport budget ever since their entry into this year's F1 and the development of new track and race cars under this new business plan shows that the budget is pretty large. Of course not Ferrari large, but quite impressive as the T125 capitalizes on the same parts, or similar parts that the F1 program utilizes. The same could be said for the Evora Cup GT4. The base car is still an Evora but it would utilize parts from Lotus' regular suppliers. The Evora Cup GT4 is powered by a 4liter V6, up from the 3.5liter 276bhp Toyota V6 of the stock Evora. This provides 390bhp and the horses are transmitted to the road via a 6 speed sequential gearbox. The fibergrlass body has also gone under the scalpel of race car body experts Dallara to optimize all aerodynamics of the car. This car was basically built for Lotus to compete in the GT4 European Cup racing series and will compete against cars like the Aston Martin N24 Vantage and the Maserati GranTurismo Trofeo. To further make building the car even more economical Lotus intends to run its own one make race series for the Evora Cup GT4. More paying customers spread out over more cars is always a good thing for a company as small as Lotus.

[extract] And now for an update about Lotus. It seems the new CEO, ex-Ferrari man Dany Bahar has decided to make sweeping changes in order to make Lotus profitable. Proton, the ultimate owners of Lotus at this point of time seem to have allowed a free reign for him to do so. Sometime last June, Lotus announced that they have a 5 year plan which includes moving upmarket