Report: New Lotus CEO Has Sights Set on Ferrari

[Administrator]

Lotus's new CEO and Proton, the company in charge of British sports car maker, have announced their ambitions to increase the company's profile and have it compete with exotic Italian automakers. In a recent interview Proton Holdings managing director Datuk Syed Zainal Abidin Syed Mohamed Tahir said that the launch of the new Evora model was the start of big things to come.

New Lotus CEO Dany Bahar highlighted the company's branding potential, with its long history in motorsorts, of being an innovitve engineering company and of builing driver-oriented sorts cars. "Lotus was mentioned in the same sentence as Ferrari, Lamborghini and Maserati in the 1970s-1990s. Then, it got closed into a corner. We believe it's the right time to bring Lotus back to where it was," he said.

Bahar, recently joined Lotus after heading up the sales department at Ferrari, where he was also responsible for marketing and branding initiatives. Lotus is also making a big push to get back into motorsports with the recent announcement that it would return to Formula 1. At the Frankfurt Auto Show in September, Lotus also unveiled the new Evora Tye 124 endurance racer (pictured above), as well as plans to field a two-car team at the Nürburgring 24 hour race next year.

In the realm of production cars, Lotus has said it is working on a new flagship model along the lines of the Iconic Lotus Esprit, that would rival Italian exotics.

More: Report: New Lotus CEO Has Sights Set on Ferrari on AutoGuide.com

[fitfan]

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[jhnmdahl]

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[kestrel74]

Ahhh cut him a break guys he only has 110 posts !!
( P )

[zcar222]

Well... Just because I saw this, I can't let it die.