Fernandes to buy Caterham & rebrand Team Lotus?

[feynman]

What a pathetic circus around a couple of 70s brand names with an overinflated heritage. Does anyone care anyway....

Miss the point much? Like I mean completely miss what this was always about?

It's nothing to do with 70s brand names. It is and always was about doing an Air Asia to Proton Cars, Fernandes, partners, and political modernizers taking a failed state-subsidized lumbering monolith, and turning it into a proper business that is able to properly compete in free markets with products and choices that services the needs and the aspirations of an expanding sector of society in the region. Fernandes sees a huge market for cars of the classic Lotus, and now Caterham mould.

Clearly current Proton mis-management and some political factions weren’t quite so keen to be all out on their ear, hence Project Bahar … a high-stakes hyper-leveraged march to Stalingrad, burning vault-loads of other people's money on a raft of fanciful and imaginary motorshow concept cars, expensive overweight Lotus roadcars rammed into a hostile market sector, and unproductive sponsorship sticker deals with just about any spec of motorsport that they could find.

Fernandes, first by fighting for the Team Lotus name, and now acquisition of Caterham, signals that he is not folding, and will see Bahar's reckless bet.
Whereas license of Lotus F1 was supposed to be the basecamp, it will now likely be Caterham, building cheap, lightweight, innovative and exciting cars ... which was always the ethos of Classic Lotus, that will be the staging ground for his assault.

When Bahar fails, when hundreds of millions of dollars of debt comes to nothing, and when Proton collapses, guess who's going to be there with one Ringgit to sweep-up the wreckage and rebuild a proper car company built on proper market oriented principles, that doesn't require closed borders to survive and doesn't look to soak and defraud the much put-upon taxpayers of Malaysia.

So it is clearly nothing at all to do with faded 70s British brands, it is about building shiny new 10s Asian brands.

[xpensive]

...
So it is clearly nothing at all to do with faded 70s British brands, it is about building shiny new 10s Asian brands.

If so, why bother fighting over obsolete 70s British kit-car brands then and why not dig up Cooper and Vanwall from the grave when at it, surely at least Cooper built a street car or two way back when?

[awizul]

The Official story from their website http://www.teamlotus.co.uk/news/2011/ca ... nouncement

Also their TL Notes http://www.teamlotus.co.uk/notes//issue ... eflip.html

[feynman]

If so, why bother fighting over obsolete 70s British kit-car brands then and why not dig up Cooper and Vanwall from the grave...

Because Cooper and Vanwall don't much exist. Whereas Proton and Lotus kinda do.

I mean Proton and Lotus are real and existent companies; factories, products, dealers, customers, the question here is the ownership of those companies. That is what this is about, the only thing it has ever been about.

I don't really see the scope for confusion.
But that you reference Cooper and Vanwall maybe gives us a clue, you perhaps think this is about Team Lotus, as in old Lotus F1 cars, and about naming F1 teams. It is not.
It is clearly about Lotus roadcars, and Fernandes looking to own that company. His license of the name was the cuckoo in the nest, to secure eventual ownership of Lotus cars. Bahar has for now blocked that route, so we see an alternate Caterham route but to the exact same goal.

Proton churn out clunky tinboxes that fail to inspire and survive only due to old-fashioned government protectionism ... that is not much of a brand value going forward. Whereas the Chapman-esque notion of "building a sports car for everybody" is resonant and relevant to where Fernandes sees the future survival and prosperity of the whole company. There is a large and rapidly increasing Asian market for exciting cars, but at prices much less than Porsche, Ferrari or McLaren (or the Bahar cars).
The original Lotus ethos, history, and brand recognition is therefore of some value to Fernandes, is worth fighting for, and is something that can perhaps be used to even regenerate the parent company. If that avenue is currently blocked, then using Caterham becomes a reasonably adequate substitute.

Lotus or Caterham are just place-holders; but I'd suggest not to get distracted, the proxy-battle may be over Lotus F1, but that in itself is not much relevant, the war is clearly for Proton. Therefore focussing too much on 1970s Lotus and names of F1 cars is probably a mistake, you'd risk missing the bigger picture.

[marcush.]

Neither Proton nor Lotus let alone Caterham are worth looking at from a business standpoint.
it´s a lotus super seven ,right?

I´d think Fernandes has decided to annoy Proton and Bahar as they did not leave him his dream.

[xpensive]

Neither Proton nor Lotus let alone Caterham are worth looking at from a business standpoint.
it´s a lotus super seven ,right?

I´d think Fernandes has decided to annoy Proton and Bahar as they did not leave him his dream.

My sentiments precisely, what kinda charade is this anyway?

[bot6]

1) what Feynman said

2) The Cooper brand is owned by BMW, so it's out of reach anyways.

3) Don't underestimate the appeal of a Western brand with history to Asian consumers. Many don't care where or how it's made as long as it's got the badge.

I think Fernandes really wanted to take over Lotus Cars alongside Proton, and that was the original idea, but then Proton turned on him after he had invested in the brand. Going around them and buying Caterham, which embodies all the "old school" Lotus values and is, in a way, a carry-on of the original Lotus Cars brand, is the right move for him. And if he wins the Team Lotus legal name battle, that opens the door to producing other "Team Lotus" branded racing cars out of the Caterham factory, including road legal ones...

Which is exactly what Lotus used to be about.

So at the end of the day, if Proton caused the double-Lotus problem in F1, could Fernandes be trying to do the same in road cars by competing with Lotus Cars using the Caterham and Team Lotus brands, as shown by the limited edition Team Lotus Caterham 7 they are making for the occasion?

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

I have to say Caterham is more spiritually Lotus than Lotus nowadays.

Just the other day a friend of a friend went to a track day in thruxton with a Roadsport(equiped with 2.0 litre V-Tec engine after the duratec went bang apparently) and by all accounts the guy has remortgaged to get a used one for £18k and use it as a daily driver for the summer
Sounds crazy, but all accounts I have had of these cars are brilliant. Whereas with Lotus it's usually good, with smatterings of discontent here and there(reliabilty usually).

I'm optimistic for Caterham, because it seems Fernandes can get them global exposure and access to new markets that would help increase numbers. All this while retaining its homegrown feel and quintessential "Britishness".
Further to this, I think the F1 connection will have a postive spin on the image of Caterham elevating its status from local to international pretty much overnight.

My crystal ball predicts them tieing up with an engineering firm like Ricardo or Mahle that would get them access to first rate engineering, to help them deliver not only more exciting iterations of the iconic "7", but also expand a more diverse range of models(an Elise challenger wouldnt be far moved from the Caterham ethos for example).

Another thought that occured to me was this: I wonder what one of these Superlights would do with a BMW Turbo diesel motor or equivalent, and the resulting running costs/mpg/ease of ownership......

[marcush.]

The seven roadcar 7kitcar thing was born to not have to layoff the mechanics over winter ...Chapman had no real love for the roadcarbusiness it was there for a reason.And making money cannot be bad either.
So to supply the world with first class sportscars is not in the genes of Lotus cars. And it shows...nevertheless the 7 is fun ,no question.

[dren]

Air Asia - "Now everyone can fly"

Caterham - "Now everyone can drive a sports car"

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

Air Asia - "Now everyone can fly"

Caterham - "Now everyone can drive a sports car"

A good thing Dren

[feynman]

Neither Proton nor Lotus let alone Caterham are worth looking at from a business standpoint

And by that measure neither was the failed Air Asia when Fernandes purchased it for loose change. I bet he is real glad not have taken internet messageboard counsel on that business decision either.

Team Lotus Enterprises, that's kinda new though, eh, and a move from the Virgin branding playbook.
Caterham promotes Team Lotus Enterprises, Team Lotus Enterprises promotes Caterham.
Perhaps see a few companies moved from Tune Group to this new Team Lotus umbrella. Hotels and maybe mobile phones first I'd guess. (Team Lotus Hotels recently registered at Companies House).
Team Lotus Ventures applied for a Class 39 Team Lotus trademark, which is "Aviation services; air transport services; transport of passengers", which might mean nothing, or something.

Start sharing and spreading some shiny new brand equity and cross marketing symbiosis across the various group holdings. Hell, even the brochure linked above was produced by some entity called Team Lotus Studios. The is your new Team Lotus brand it seems.

So it's an end-around play, which might actually work-out better than Plan A, instead of working a Lotus Racing license from the inside into ownership of Proton, build Team Lotus Enterprises from the outside and maybe acquire it later that way. Instead of Group Lotus a Proton company, perhaps it will be Proton, a Team Lotus company.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

@Feynman

I think we may see a full on metamorphosis from Lotus to Caterham, with Fernandes selling the Lotus Racing rights back on to Lotus Group for a sizeable sum. It would also end the messy campaign we have witnessed thus far and dovetail neatly in to what Fernandes is trying to achieve, albeit with Caterham instead.

[feynman]

That could very well happen I don't disagree ... but I think the Lotus brand, and its generally more widely known history, is clearly valuable enough for Fernandes to try to keep a hold off if he can. Even trivial stuff like KAR 120 C which features in the brochure today, is clearly more part of the worldwide Lotus, not Caterham, public recognition factor.

(Also hearing the understandable mangling of Caterham name on non-native speaking business and news reports, suggest that Team Lotus remains a stronger and simpler international branding proposition going forward).

Use Caterham to find your feet in the car building game, build something explicitly for the Asian middle classes to test the execution of your future market theories. All the while keep half an eye on Group and Proton and its travails, have your own strong, diverse, version of the rejuvenated Team Lotus brand ready to smoothly step-in when and if any opportunity later presents itself.

[FrukostScones]

Hot Lady: What do you do in F1?
Team Mechanic: I work for Team Caterham.
Hot Lady: ... oh, team catering..?!
Team Mechanic(very proud):Yes!
Hot lady: Ok, then could you serve me Champagne please?
Team Mechanic: But today Mclaren won!
Hot Lady: ???
Team Mechanic: But we will finish in the points soon.
Hot Lady: ??? (leaves)....
Team Mechanic: !??'*'*#f#k (leaves)