
Caterham launches a new ‘Bikes’ division
At today’s International Motorcycle Exhibition (EICMA) in Milan, Caterham Group launched a range of three prototype bikes, offering the promise of Caterham’s road-car DNA…
At today’s International Motorcycle Exhibition (EICMA) in Milan, Caterham Group launched a range of three prototype bikes, offering the promise of Caterham’s road-car DNA…
It would be foolish to judge Caterham based purely on their past achievements. That’s the thought I came away with following a morning spent…
Last week an article was published online by Auto Express magazine, with the title “Lotus’ future is safe”. In the interests of transparency and to ensure an honest dialogue, I’ll provide a little background on the source of this article and why you should still maintain an open mind about Lotus’ future.
Earlier this week I got together with Margareta Pagano, Business Editor of The Independent newspaper, and compared notes on the state of play at Norfolk’s favourite car maker.
In a statement released this evening, DRB-Hicom announced the appointment of Mohd Aslam Bin Farikullah as Lotus’ new Chief Operating Officer (COO), at the same time as they confirmed the termination of Dany Bahar as Group Lotus CEO.
It comes as no surprise to hear that Dany Bahar’s suspension from his role as Lotus CEO, has now been confirmed as a full termination.
I use the word suspended, even though that’s not a term one would normally use when a CEO is removed from his post, however during the past few hours that’s the phrase which has been used when I spoke to those people close to the matter.
Do you care about the truth? Do you care about the survival of a company whose engineering innovation has fundamentally influenced the cars we drive today? Do you really care? Or is Lotus just another target to parody and poke fun at for our own amusement?
At this week’s Auto China motorshow in Beijing, Lotus have been showcasing a limited edition Evora GTE specially adapted for Chinese roads. Meanwhile new owner DRB-Hicom has confirmed the sportscar maker is not for sale – yet, and Lotus say they’ve raised their IndyCar commitment by reducing the number of cars it supports from five to three.
The trouble with journalism and news reporting is that most of the writers pass comment on things which they invariably have little or no personal experience of. Some are able to separate their egos or ambitions from the subject and present a balanced view, but all too often a writer can become drunk on the power they have to influence other people’s opinions.
Questions have been raised during the past 24 hours over the handling of Lotus’ future by new owners DRB-HICOM and in particular the role played by Lotus current CEO Dany Bahar in securing the jobs of its Hethel employees.
We spoke with Lotus this afternoon and you can read their responses below. There are still a number of questions outstanding, which we will update in this article when we hear back from them tomorrow.
Anybody following the ongoing story of the cataclysm wrenching at the relationships between Group Lotus, its adoptive parent Proton, and Lotus F1 Team will be used to reading opinions so wide and varied that even the most extreme soap-opera storyline might seem tame in comparison.