2012 has been a rather tumultuous year for British sports car manufacturer Lotus Cars but recent news from the boutique brand suggests better days are ahead -- Autocar reports development of the highly anticipated Lotus Esprit sports car is all but complete.
According to Autocar, the Lotus Esprit is just a minor tweak and a sign off away from hitting the market. The flagship Lotus sports car was the brainchild of former CEO Dany Bahar.
In 2010, five radical new Lotus sports cars were featured during the Paris Motor Show and the return of an all-new Esprit headlined the event. Unfortunately, 2 years of underfunding and mismanagement has caused the takeover of parent company Proton to Malaysian conglomerate DRB-Hicom. What's more, Dany Bahar was later removed from his position due to misconduct and the inappropriate use of company money.
The intent of the new Esprit was to take on the current sports car benchmark-- the Porsche 911 Turbo. Lotus boasted that its new Esprit would be a mid-engined coupe featuring an in-house designed twin-turbocharged 5.0 liter V8 engine mated to a sophisticated 7-speed gearbox. Lotus also pegged the power output at approximately 650-hp.
In addition, carbon fiber architecture and hybrid powertrains have become the growing vogue among supercar development and Lotus Cars' approach is no different. Rumors of a Formula 1 style KERS (kinetic energy recovery system) hybrid had surfaced, potentially providing the Esprit with an additional 100-hp. The Esprit will also have an ultra-rigid chassis utilizing both carbon fiber and aluminum. Topping it all off, early reports promised all this hardware for a starting price as low as £100,000 in order to remain competitive with Porsche.
As promising as the new Esprit sounds on paper, the financial constraints and the leaderless interim management at Lotus raises doubt as to whether an Esprit will become a reality at all.
This morning, iMotor Times reached out to Lotus for confirmation of the latest Esprit reports. Lotus Cars public relations manager Tracey Tompsett replied, "There is consent speculation about our brand, and whilst we appreciate the keen interest in Lotus, we will not comment on the various rumours or our future car strategy."
