Staying true to its pillars: a new Lotus is formed

27 January, 2015

In a time where many automakers are struggling Lotus Cars are bucking the trend. They’ve recently announced that their overall sales are up by 54 per cent in the past nine months. In terms of volume, this is an increase of 551 cars on the prior year bringing sales to a total of 1565 cars.

Clearly Lotus Cars’ new strategy is working, with 25 new dealers added over the past nine months and a further 50 to join by the end of 2015. Lotus’ CEO, Jean-Marc Gales, said, “The positive reception that all our new Lotus cars are receiving in both new and established markets shows that our product development strategy is heading in the right direction.”

Lotus are set to reveal a new car at the Geneva International Motor Show in early March, 2015, said to remain true to Lotus’ core pillars of lightness, performance, and driving purity. The demand for Lotus’ cars is still rising in China and Japan, and a new model is speculated to considerably accelerate sales in the USA, Europe, Middle East, and Asia.

 

A second dose of Dash

When the car arrived in Wellington in December 2018 it was duly taken along for entry certification. Vehicle Inspection NZ (VINZ) found some wrongly wired lamps and switches — not too bad — but, much more significantly, some poor welding repairs. As the structural problems were probed more thoroughly, we realized the previous owner’s restoration would not do and we needed an upgrade. Dash had made it into the country but it would take some time and money before he would be free to explore any of New Zealand’s scenic highways.
We took the car to our new home in Johnsonville in the northern suburbs of Wellington and I pored over the car in detail to figure out what was next. There were lots of new parts on the car and a very perky reconditioned drivetrain but the chassis needed serious work.

Lunch with… Jim Palmer

In the 1960s, Hamilton’s Jim Palmer won the prestigious ‘Gold Star’ four times and was the first resident New Zealander home in the New Zealand Grand Prix on five consecutive occasions. He shared the podium with Stirling Moss, Jack Brabham, Bruce McLaren, Graham Hill, Jim Clark, Denny Hulme, Jackie Stewart, and Chris Amon. The extent of his domination of the open-wheeler scene in New Zealand will probably never be matched or exceeded. Yet he’s always been modest about his achievements.