 |
There are no concrete details as of now, but the company is expected to present its "Dawn of a new era" blueprint at the Paris motor show. One of the possibilities is that a new Lotus Esprit might be displayed in the motor show. The erstwhile model of Esprit is clearly out of place and a replacement is long overdue.
Talk about the competition with Porsche, Aston Martin and Ferrari; and imagining an all-new Esprit power packed with eight cylinders isn't difficult. Among the other contenders are Evora convertible and a Lotus 2+2 with a supercharger. But the Esprit looks the most plausible of the pack as the car will need to crank out at least 500 hp to compete with other performance cars. And it's not that a V8 or V10 engine can be placed on any chassis.
But there might be a surprise in the form of a completely new platform vehicle. Lotus is owned by Malaysian carmaker Proton. While the British company has been making losses in most of the years since the acquisition in 1996, Proton now plans to make it a profit-making venture in five years. It might sound like a pie in the sky but Proton has been recruiting people from Ferrari, Porsche and Aston Martin and that's why a complete repositioning of the grand looks imminent.
Although there are plans of Proton and Lotus collaborating to make a small city car in next couple of years, the focus area for now will be the performance sports car.
