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Deja Vu All Over Again

1249 Views 11 Replies 6 Participants Last post by  Arno
(bits of Lotus history from "The Lotus Book" and "Lotus Elise, the Official Story")


New car launches:

"The launch of the Elite or Type 75 was originally planned for March 1974 but... customer cars finally went on sale in January of the following year"

"Work on [the] .... Turbo Esprit - began in late 1977. But it was to be... August of [1980] before deliveries...actually began... In 1983 the car was finally 'federalized' and made ready for the company's renewed assault on the USA"

"Although Elise [S1] debuted in September 1995, it was human in gestation, taking fully nine months before the Hethel assembly line gave birth to Elises for the dealerships and an alarming waiting list..."


Marketing communications:

"Some confusion remained, however, as the new car.... was known as both the Eclat S2 and the S2.2... Lotus were occasionally prone to this sort of confusion: the Eclat was at first known in Lotus circles as the Elite Coupe while its eventual replacement, that is to say the car which superceded the S2/2.2, was originally intended to be the Eclat 3. This was then renamed the Eclat Excel, before in October 1982 the company finally settled for simply 'Excel'.... the company showed another new revision, called Riviera..."


Market timing:

"The company, it is true, had not had an easy ride in North America. Plenty of goodwill and enthusiasm traditionally greeted the news of another... new-product launch, but somehow with too few staff and not enough resources Lotus had never cracked its biggest nut... unfortunately, just as the new [Esprit S3 distribution] deal launched, America took a tumble. The exchange rate was worse than it had been for years...
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Bootnote:

Deja Vú is French for "seen again"..

Craigy
Deja Vú is French for "seen again"..
Yes, but the whole line is a quote from ball player Yogi Berra...:)
Charles Rozier said:
Yes, but the whole line is a quote from ball player Yogi Berra...:)
Does he like picnic baskets?

:clap:

Craigy
Craigy said:
Does he like picnic baskets?
I don't think the ranger's gonna like that...
Charles Rozier said:
Although Elise [S1] debuted in September 1995, it was human in gestation, taking fully nine months before the Hethel assembly line gave birth to Elises for the dealerships and an alarming waiting list..."
this is the scariest quote. who hear wants to wait 9 MONTHS for their car? That would mean that I would have to wait 15 Months! no way jose...
I had to wait almost 10 months on my S2. Ordered Feb 2001, delivered December 2001..

Quite normal for Lotus during a startup/ramp-up phase.... (S2 was introduced end 2000)

Bye, Arno.
Arno said:
I had to wait almost 10 months on my S2. Ordered Feb 2001, delivered December 2001..

Quite normal for Lotus during a startup/ramp-up phase.... (S2 was introduced end 2000)

Bye, Arno.
Hey Arno, I'm gonna be in holland at the weekend - Where should I go if my S1 breaks down?

Craigy
Craigy said:
Hey Arno, I'm gonna be in holland at the weekend - Where should I go if my S1 breaks down?

Craigy
A brothel :D
Craigy said:
Hey Arno, I'm gonna be in holland at the weekend - Where should I go if my S1 breaks down?
Depends where you are, but Van Sten engineering (http://www.lotusspecialist.nl/) is a very good address.

Not a dealer, but an independent.

Only other option is the official dealer who has 2 locations (http://www.lotuscars.nl/) in Amsterdam and in Lochem (main garage, east side of the country)

Bye, Arno.
Thanks Arno,
that's two people you've helped - a friend of mine is going to a track day at zandvoort soon too. He wanted to know about repairs just in case something goes bang on his track day.

Craigy
I'll be doing a trackday at Zandvoort on July 1st too. Pretty much my 'home' circuit :)

AFAIK there will be technical/spanner support on-site, so that should help.

Wil be getting my new brake discs tomorrow, so I need to hurry and get them installed and bedded in before the trackday..

Bye, Arno.
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