there is no point developing an engine when it is very expensive and because of lack of reliability experience, it breaks down. Toyota is one company who is clearly reliable and in recent years have had reasonable power output per litre out of their engines.

As for the structure of Lotus Group, there is an engineering division which provides consultancy and mechanical designs to various other manufacturers, and Lotus Car which produces the Lotuses. Now the best that Proton Car can get is consultancy and design from Lotus Eng. Even if they are all under Proton Holdings, they are different companies, and their books are kept separately.

And given that Lotus’ business falls under British jurisdiction, I am very sure that business deals (eg consultancy work, design, prototyping) that Proton Cars commission Lotus Eng to do will be transparent and clean.

So the workflow will probably be something like this : Proton submits specification requirement for job (eg Satria Neo chassis design) to Lotus Eng, Lotus quotes fees, Proton pays Lotus, Lotus deliver design and manufacturing blueprint, Proton makes Neo, Lotus takes money and use to design sports cars that Lotus Cars can build.

Now. Both Proton and Lotus are bugged by the same problem: low quality finishing and materials. Good to drive, sometimes even great, but doesnt make the owner/passenger feel good. Give it some thought and you can see the reason. At the volume that Proton and Lotus are making their cars, they cannot bargain for high quality parts. For the money Proton pays to get 10 pieces of 2star plastic, VW can get 10 pieces of 5star plastic because they buy in 10-100times the amount that Proton would’ve bought.

What Proton really need to save its ass, and start making better cars which will carry on to save its ass, is to start a part-purchasing company with lotus, and another major car manufacturer. One that immediately comes to mind, is TATA. Everything will start to make sense.

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p/s : Even the new Nissan GT-R seek consultancy secretly from Lotus…

They don’t seem to be embarrassed when they keep asking Proton to advance them money…

Let’s hope this model will be successful and we don’t have to prop them up anymore.

Will it sell? I think so, the performance is there and people are sick of seeing 911/Caymans/Boxsters.

is this model replacement for the old esprit?

they should put in the GTR’s engine into this car…that would send this car flying round the circuit.

mitlaveno,

they call that the wiralution.

first of all, the car has a lot of elements from Elise, Europa and F430, that means both Lotus and Ferrari, but the brand is Lotus….

then, they put in a Toyota engine, and get a “decent” name from our local Ah Beng who drives Proton Wira with front half-cut of Evo (Evo + Wira)…..

sorry guys, just kidding, hehez

how proton making money out of lotus ? well basically lotus is doing engineering consultancy for any car manufacturer.. hey, even lotus tune the handling for the famous nissan gtr r35..

Lotus must be damn malu being associated with PROTON…..eeeeeeeeuwww
……………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Why must they feel malu? They have already Malu long time ago when they can’t survive and Proton bought their share in cash!!

Engine by Toyota. Gearbox by…?

Lembu punya susu, sapi dapat nama.

on proton+lotus thing,
i like the handling of gen2, savvy. wish i could drive a neo.