Lotus might be on the search for new owners

[Dinesh]

Lotus has unveiled some daring, if somewhat necessary, plans to push more cars in the future by producing sports cars with a slightly wider curve of appeal that will surely pull in a wider target market. Nonetheless, when Lotus Chief Executive Officer Dany Bahar speaks of looking for new buyers, the man isn’t talking about getting cars off the showroom floor but the actual company itself.

While Lotus is currently under the helm of Proton, the national automaker might not possess the necessary resources to provide Lotus with the synergies and shared development that Bahar has marked as crucial to Lotus’ success.

Inside Line has reported Bahar as mentioning that Lotus may be on the lookout for a larger automaker partner to seriously develop into a strong sports car business. If the stakes were out, all bets would be firmly on Toyota as the Japanese carmaker already provides Lotus with engines and other components currently in use.

Source: Inside Line

 

[langsuyrx]

toyotus

 

[skazareth]

i knew this eventually would come, looooong time ago. Look at Dany, he is so not Proton. To me it is a slap for Proton (in a good way) and good move for Lotus.

and for Toyotus?! look at this pic, i dont think they will be good bed mate..

 

[beatnik]

yeah.. no more sampan toyotas.. if toyota owns lotus.. and they can share2 handling tricks with subaru (toyota owns subaru btw), will the next impreza be godly?

and proton fanboys can no longer look down on toyota sampans.. coz if it ever happens, the sampans might handle as good or better than protons. lol :captain:

 

[^pomen_GTR^]

right in the face of proton

 

[skazareth]

yeah.. no more sampan toyotas.. if toyota owns lotus.. and they can share2 handling tricks with subaru (toyota owns subaru btw), will the next impreza be godly?

and proton fanboys can no longer look down on toyota sampans.. coz if it ever happens, the sampans might handle as good or better than protons. lol :captain:

i bet u hv one of those sampans by the way u expressed ur feeling here...

 

[keevan]

hahaha ...wat a joke....seems proton losing its grip in LOTUS....Can,t stop thinking what is next going to happen to LOTUS in F1......

 

[turbo10]

toyota handling like sampan? that bad?...wow!

 

[HKS-GT2835R]

i do hope vw buy lotus :P

 

[BE5RSK]

Hahaha...you guys when mentioning about sampan, it triggered my memory of my "Ford Sampan" way back late 90's.

Anyway, I hope the potential buyers are not going to bid Lotus via Twitter, as same Tony Fernandes did to West Ham United recently.

 

[Kevin Lee]

i think the suitable group to buy lotus would be renault, then the renault-nissan-infiniti-lotus quadrilogy would be complete!

 

[Ariel Katana]

No more Lotus handling in the proton cars? Thats why they combined with mitsubishi again with their Inspira model...is it?

 

[mujinkun]

What about the FIAT Group, they got FERRARI, MASERATI, FIAT, ALFA ROMEO, LANCIA and CHRYSLER? Might a good buy to bring LOTUS into FIAT also.

VW is too big already, might out of control if got many maker in one group.

 

[stormlcc]

if toyota buys lotus there'll be lots of Meevi with "handling by lotus" stickers on the windows.

my bet would be FIAT group, or TATA group, especially TATA group, they NEED a sportscar maker in their lineup, they already owned jaguar and Range Rover, and their actually pretty good!

 

[driftkingII]

i read some news long ago about GM, GM has some keen interest in buying Lotus from Proton also buying Proton just to get Lotus.

i remembered one lotus model uses a GM engine.. i forgot which model but i do not like that model bcoz it is too sensitive.. (Yes i know Lotus also use Toyota Engine)

about Fiat, i heard that Ferrari is going out of Fiat bcoz Fiat team up with Chrysler !!

If toyota buys Lotus, i smell someone is coming back to F1 again !