Lotus is a brand with a long and distinguished history – yet that’s not enough if your present situation is dire. In the first eight months of the year, Lotus sales were merely a blip in the UK sales chart as only 272 cars were delivered, a 24% decrease to the already depressing 358 units of the same period in 2010.
Karl Heinz Kalbfell, who used to work for BMW, was brought in last year in an effort to increase sales. He says that the reason Lotus can’t sell more cars is that the public isn’t aware of the company’s products.
“The brand is well known, but the products are not”, Kalbfell told Autocar magazine. “We have some great cars in our range, like the Evora. Many car companies would love to have the Evora in their range. Now we must get the car to the buyers’ shopping list.”
The first step is the Evora GTE, which sports an updated chassis and carbon-fibrer body parts and most importantly, comes with 444HP instead of the standard car’s 350-horses.
Kalbfell hopes that the GTE, which will sell for nearly £120K in the UK and Exige S will lay the ground for next year’s £100,000 new Esprit since, as he said, “we cannot jump buyers up from the Elise to the Esprit”.
Also on Kalbfell’s list of priorities is to improve management, dealership network and public awareness in preparation for Lotus’ upcoming models.
