2013 Lotus Esprit
CEO Dany Bahar says the company is looking at designing its own engine instead.
"I believe that if you're selling a $160,000-plus sports car, not having your own engine is a disadvantage," he says. "So we're doing a feasibility study to see if we can do our own road-car engine. The Lexus engine is ready for the Esprit, the first of our new cars to launch, but we still have the choice." Lotus' engineering division certainly has the ability to do engines, and has done several high-profile ones for clients over the years.
Bahar stressed that Lotus' overall investment budget in its five-model turnaround plan is fixed. The new engine can be funded only if savings are found elsewhere. "We wouldn't ask for more money from our investors, and we certainly wouldn't get it."
"You need an exciting powerplant or you're nowhere," adds chief technical officer Wolf Zimmermann, recently recruited from Mercedes-AMG. "If you want to compete in the premier league, against the Ferrari 458 or McLaren MP4-12C, this 5.0-liter supercharged engine is too heavy and too big." If the program gets the nod, Zimmermann says, Lotus will probably do a modular V-8/V-6 that would serve the mid-engine V-8 Esprit, front-engine V-8 Elite and Eterne, and mid-engine V-6 Elan.
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