BTW, show me where all the marketing is in the US. It's virtually non-existent. The company has almost zilch cash flow and is operating on a string. Until it gets real FINANCIAL MUSCLE behind it, we're going to be hearing about these cute little stories about an ad here, and ad there, modest product line improvements, etc.
Welcome to Lotus. This is the way it's ALWAYS been for the company. It is a small company building niche cars with very limited appeal, especially in the U.S. Economies of scale dictate that they cannot compete on price. And prices are high compared to their relative build quality reputation...deserved or not.
The legendary handling of their cars appeals to a relatively small group who are willing to put up with the price of entry and myriad idiosyncracies.
They do have full page ads regularly in R & T and Classic Motorsports. Not exactly a marketing campaign, but it's there.
Why don't they sell here? Their cars have such a narrow appeal in terms of ownership (everybody likes to look, take pictures, sit in...but owning is something else) that when they introduce a new model everybody who wants a new one and can afford a new one gets one the first year or two they are out. Then new car sales drop as pent up demand has been satisfied AND new car sales compete with lightly used Lotus that soon show up on the market.
Look at this very forum. People are always looking to buy a leftover on the cheap. And whine if a dealer won't come down on price. They also whine about the cost of taking the car to the dealer for service. Or the cost of parts when buying from a dealer.
If people wanting Lotus are buying used or always beating down the dealer on price, and are looking for alternatives for maintenance, why, exactly would a dealership even WANT to carry Lotus?
Everybody wants to buy/maintain everything as inexpensively as possible, sure. But disincenting dealerships to even carry the brand isn't in the Lotus owners' community best interest.
It costs a lot to get a car to federal spec to sell here. And the volume they can expect simply does not justify the cost. If they were to build a truly compliant car, with no temporary exemptions, it would compromise a lot of things the Lotus faithful insist upon and it would be prohibitively expensive.
And the company worried about profits? What else
should they be worried about? Even Chapman himself wasn't selling street cars to be altruisitc...he wanted the money to fund his racing. Aside from being a funding source for racing, he had little interest in selling road cars.
Towards the end he seemed to be more interested in his aviation hobby than in cars.
