2014 Lotus Elan
The 2014 Lotus Elan will replace the Evora. The Lotus Elan Concept is shown here. Click here to see pictures of the 2010 Lotus Evora.
It replaces the mid-engine Evora and could thus be the most significant of five new models coming by mid-decade from Britain’s Lotus Cars. The 21st-century Elan promises performance and exclusivity at a decent price--if it actually sees the light of day.

What We Know About the 2014 Lotus Elan

Call it a case of the “mouse that roared.” We’re talking about the audacious recovery-and-growth plan unveiled by Britain’s Lotus Cars at the 2010 Paris Auto Salon, with a repeat announcement a few months later at Los Angeles.

In brief, Lotus intends to introduce no fewer than five clean-sheet cars between mid-2013 and mid-2015, including a first-ever mid-engine V6 Elan to replace today’s Evora. The objective: To become a serious sales-and-image rival for premium performance brands like Aston Martin, Ferrari, Jaguar, and Porsche. If the plan succeeds, Lotus will more than triple its yearly worldwide sales, soaring from some 2,400 units in 2009--including just 850 or so in the U.S.--to a projected 7,000-8,000. But that “if” is a big one, for reasons that include still-uncertain prospects for a global economic recovery and the fact that Lotus will be challenging strong, iconic brands in a high-dollar market where it has little prior experience.

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At least funding will be no problem, thanks to a fresh $1.2 billion investment by Malaysia’s Proton Holdings Berhad, which bought Lotus in 1996 and has lost money on it every year since. According to Steve Cropley, editor-in-chief of Britain’s Autocar magazine, Proton decided “that it had only two stark options for Lotus’ future: to hold an immediate fire sale or develop the company to the extent of its potential. That was when [Proton] began talking to Dany Behar, then a sales and marketing chief at Ferrari…[The new-model plan] took ‘maybe three months to devise.’”

Behar, a Swiss native, took over as Group Lotus CEO in October 2009 at age 38. Group Lotus consists of Lotus Cars, the automaking division, and Lotus Engineering, a design and technology consultancy that has remained profitable. Both operations are headquartered at Hethel, northeast of London, near a former Royal Air Force base where sections of the runway have famously served as Lotus’ test track for over 40 years.

To help execute what he unabashedly calls the “Dany Behar plan,” the new CEO has recruited top-level talent from the very rivals whose growth and success he wants Lotus to emulate. Behar recognized Lotus’ ample expertise in engineering chassis and lightweight structures, but felt it needed help with styling, marketing, and quality control. Perhaps his most significant hires are Ferrari’s Donato Coco as design chief and Wolf Zimmerman, formerly of Mercedes-Benz’s AMG performance division, to head up vehicle engineering. This triumvirate is largely responsible for the five new models unveiled in concept form at Paris and L.A. The company has also shown a mockup of a small Scion iQ-style city car, but the prospects for that one are unclear.

In all, reports Motor Trend’s Paul Horrell, Behar has hired “23 senior people” in marketing and production, plus design and product development. He’s also secured an A-list group of advisors including Burkhard Goeschel, a one-time design and purchasing chief at BMW; Tom Purves, the recently retired CEO of Rolls-Royce and former CEO of BMW North America; and even Bob Lutz, the celebrated product guru at the “old” General Motors. Lutz’s hiring is ironic, in that GM owned Lotus from 1986 to 1993.

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