Hoovey689

iTrader: (16)

Lotus scrapes together enough money to restore production

"The past four months have been really tough for us," admits Lotus CEO Dany Bahar to Autocar magazine. "We were working at a pace nobody had seen at Lotus for many years," Bahar continued, alluding to the British sports car maker's planned rollout of four models over five years that recently had recently hit the skids thanks to a 60-day financial freeze at Malaysian parent DRB-Hicom. "The shut-down, as I call it," Bahar continued, "was very hard for us," but the Lotus boss forcefully rejects media reports that his company is being shopped to potential buyers.

Production at Hethel is reportedly swinging back into action within the next few days now that DRB-Hicom has slid money across the table to re-start Elise, Exige and Evora production. Lotus will also reportedly continue to develop the new Esprit and its V8 engine and automated transmission. Bahar went on to dispute reports that KPMG was looking for a buyer to take on Lotus, though there are likely to be management shuffles and continuing developments between Lotus, DRB-Hicom, Youngman, and who know what other parties, as the re-start doesn't completely short-circuit the rumors of a possible sale.

In fact, resuming production could potentially even position Lotus more attractively for a potential suitor, rather than putting a shuttered, down-at-the-mouth boutique carmaker on the block.

http://www.autoblog.com/2012/04/27/l...re-production/

Hoovey689

iTrader: (16)

For goodness sake Toyota, BUY Lotus already!! They need help!!

JessePS

I concur

kumquatism

iTrader: (10)

Haha. A Toyota Evora sounds quite nice

Dr. Yellow

iTrader: (10)

that would be a great way for toyota to get back into racing

Stormwind

It is pretty sad how some of these companies are like a lot of people in US...ie, they are 2 paychecks away from bankrupcy.

I8ABMR

Im sure this kind of stuff is not going to inspire a lot of confidence in the buyers. You know they are cutting costs from somewhere

M K S

My thoughts exactly.

daelo74

Why not sell it to a China car company like Volvo did. They have tons of spare cash.