Hoovey689

iTrader: (16)

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dseag2

Volvo is making some beautiful cars these days, and if Lotus works with them on suspension tuning...

Hoovey689

iTrader: (16)

One of the biggest wins for Lotus that I can foresee is utilizing Volvo's dealership network to help distribute their cars.

dseag2

True that.

mmarshall

We'll see if they also get some more safety-equipment and crash-protection, in the Volvo tradition. Ever since the days of founder Colin Chapman, the primary focus of Lotus products has been to make them as physically small and lightweight as possible....on the theory, of course, that less weight means less work for the engine / steering / brakes, with better response. But it also meant the vehicles were often built like tin cans.

JessePS

Sweet!

It be awesome to see Lotus at a Volvo dealership. I hope it does work out.

It is nice to see Volvo up their style game with the new models.

Aron9000

As long as they don't add weight in the name of safety. Honestly I think safety is probably at the very bottom of the list for a potential Lotus buyer. You know its a small tin can car, you know the risks, yet you drive it anyways. If you were worried about safety, you wouldn't buy a Lotus IMO.

Really what I think would be the real upside with this merger, like others said, is using Volvo's dealer network and service bays. Still kind of an odd mashup though, considering the two brands have completely different customers, corporate histories, and the two are NOTHING alike in terms of image, design philosophy, I couldn't think of two more different car companies.

Lotus is in a tough spot right now IMO, as the "semi-affordable"(ie not a Ferrari, Lambo or McLaren) pure sports car market has almost completely dried up. I mean we have the Miata, Cayman/Boxter, 911, Ariel Atom(that's not street legal in every state), Subie BRZ, Alfa Romeo 4C, and the Corvette, not a lot of cars because the market just isn't there.

Cars like the Elise, ie a raw sports car but at a semi affordable price, has always been a very small niche, but its one I think is going to be even harder to try and grow volume in the future, if you keep the formula the same. People want a dose of refinement/practicality, and quite frankly if you fatten a Lotus up and make it luxurious, then it really isn't a Lotus IMO.

Now they could go the other way and start chasing the Audi R8, McLaren, Ferrari, Lambo, etc, that market is red hot right now, sales have never been better for $200-400k exotic cars.

Sulu

An even odder mashup, in my opinion, was the ownership of Lotus Cars by Proton, an almost unknown third-world automaker, for 21 years. Proton's owner probably bought Lotus in an effort to legitimize Proton as an up and coming international automaker, just as well-established automakers such as Volvo, and Jaguar and Land Rover were bought in the last decade by automakers not well-known in the West, but trying to move up and out in the world.

mmarshall

I tend to agree. However, the government sometimes requires (or doesn't require) things that are over and above what the public itself may or may not want.

Perhaps a little off-topic, but I wish you all could have seen me, at 6' 2" and way north of 250 lbs, trying to get in and out of a Lotus Elise, a car that, by comparison, makes a Mazda Miata seem limo-spacious in comparison. (bitkahuna, as a former Miata owner, you would have especially gotten a laugh out of this). The Elise was the very first car I reviewed after I retired.....the very next Monday morning, after I retired on a Friday afternoon. One of my best friends (and former co-worker, who had helped rent space for my retirement dinner) had asked me, if possible, to review an Elise. I said sure....even though it was somewhat of a drive out to the nearest shop in Gaithersburg, MD. They had a couple of both Elises and Exiges in stock (the Exige costs more, but there isn't much of a size-difference between them). I looked at the Elise and said to myself....."How am I going to get into THAT ?....and it turned out to be an excellent question. After about 15 minutes or so of repeatedly trying to make a pretzel out of my not-so-young body...with the non-adjustable steering column and manual seat-lever set for maximum entry-space, I looked at the salesman, and he said, "Give up, Mike...this car is just not for you"....and this from a guy that sells cars for a living. Well, I remembered the promise I had made to my friend (when I give my word, it means something) ....and I thought "Let me try just one more thing, and if this doesn't work, I'll give up". So, I opened BOTH doors all the way, stooped down, ducked into the driver's side head first, pulled myself length-wise completely transverse across the entire two front seats, with my head sticking out of the passenger side (and my manhood brushing the shift-lever LOL), somehow got both of my feet into the driver's foot-well, then slowly slid my body back across the interior so that my butt was planted into the drivers' seat, and, once fully-in, got adjusted the best way I could for at least an attempt at a test-drive. Even adjusted the best I could do, my knees were wrapped/splayed around the steering-wheel like the inside of a mitten, and I had to press on the clutch pedal wth my left leg and foot bent at a sharp angle (no automatic transmission-option, of course, in Lotus products). And, even with the seat-back rake-adjusted, I had to bend my head down somewhat with the roof panel on. Finally, off on the test-drive....where I found that the car was not only designed and built like a Go-Kart, but, with its almost complete lack of insulation and trim, essentially drove like one (the cabin floor, for example, not only lacked carpet, but did not even have a rubber covering...it was painted/treated bare aluminum. When I got back (proving the salesperson wrong, as he claimed I couldn't drive it), I then, of course, had to figure a way to get OUT, which as luck and common sense would dictate, ended up (slowly) being the reverse of how I got in. After that escapade, I had had enough for one day....tired and more than a little hungry, I stopped in Rockville on the way back home to Virginia, and got one of my favorite pizzas (Ledo's) for lunch. After an afternoon rest, I wrote my review up that evening, posted it, and sent my friend a copy.

(That Criswell dealership, BTW, no longer deals in the Lotus franchise...they gave it up six or seven years ago).

Aron9000

^ Yeah that's another thing Lotus needs to fix IMO. They don't need to make them luxo-cruisers like BMW's 2 doors, but they're really limiting their market if you have to be under 5'9" and have the flexibility/build of a female gymnast to even get into one of their cars and be comfortable. Tall guys, fat guys, and muscle jocks with big/broad shoulders might want to buy your cars too.

mmarshall

Their whole idea, of course, is to keep their cars at Go-Kart weights for Go-Kart driving response. Put somebody my size in (even with a lot of shoehorning) add a full tank of gas, and, even without a passenger, the gross weight of the car probably goes up a good 25%.

Aron9000

I wouldn't say it goes up 25%, an Elise is about 1900-2000lbs stock with a full tank of gas. Anyways, making the passenger cabin bigger is something they need to do when they start designing the car, it has to be a priority for the engineering team, obviously they didn't give a rats a@@ about ingress/egress and room when they designed the Elise, but it kind of makes sense. The design is 20 years old now, and it is basically one step up from a kit car. I'm just saying in this day and age, that type of ergonomic sillyness won't fly, at least if they hope to move more cars. Even McLaren redesigned their carbon-fiber tub for easier ingress and more room for the passengers in their latest cars.

swajames

I'm just under 6'2" and one of the most memorable drives I've had was in an Elise on the windy mountain roads not far from my house. It's a spectacular car with one singular purpose and it delivers on that supremely. It's not comfortable, but it's totally engaging and it handles unbelievably well. The steering is close to telepathic. Just a superb driver's car. I have a few cars that aren't in my sig and one of them is a very modified NC Miata with a custom coilover suspension and that gets close but the Lotus is even lighter and nimbler. I'd love to see more Lotuses on the road but if you start adding weight and upsizing the Lotus it kind of stops being a Lotus. You may as well get a Miata and heavily mod it or a Boxster if they do. They're kind of between a rock and a hard place as adding weight and creature comforts is anathema to the current customers and it's far from certain there are enough customers who would buy a Lotus that's lost a lot of the Chapman ethos.

mmarshall

Yep......that's because of the featherweight construction and short wheelbase. It's essentially a $50K go-cart with an aluminum body and frame.

S2000toIS350

I see things going another way.

Lotus cars are crap and don't sell (874 global sales in 2016).

The Evora was supposed to compete with the Boxster/Cayman siblings. Oh, I guess that didn't work out.

Time to get real. They can use Lotus engineering expertise and pizazz (whatever is left of it) and tune/engineer much better driving Volvos and hopefully bring a new RWD platform Volvo so they aren't in the S90/RLX/Continental fake luxury car biz.

Longer term, maybe Lotus can build a larger but still light car for the professional types who want something different from what the market already offers (not holding my breath).