On Football (or Soccer), F1 Drivers and Proton's Latest Plans for Lotus

The World Cup for the world of football (or soccer for those in America) is currently drawing to a close and I during the main bulk of the tournament, I caught Brazil playing Portugal on the telly. The game ended in a scoreless draw and it had its ups and downs. You could see flashes of skill coming from the Brazilian players but it was slightly boring most of the time. And football has been getting more and more boring due to players following tactics and not dribbling the ball through the defense like in the days of Diego Maradona or even Pele.

You see, it's not as if the players aren't giving 150% in the game and relying on tactics; its that if you actually looked at each and every one of the players, whether those playing for Brazil or for Portugal, you'd see that all of them are fighting fit. If you asked each one of them to remove their jerseys you'd see washboard abs and an overall well built physique.

This is the actual problem with the game. Everyone is as fit and most importantly as fast as one another. How can you actually outplay or out dribble a person with the same amount of skill and tactics out there? The differences between the great and the greatest players nowadays is so slim and it shows in the game. As an example it can be said that Ronaldo of Portugal may be only 5% better than the other players in his team for him to be the star player. It isn't like it was in those days where the differences were large and for a Pele or a Maradona to be outstanding, it was easy.

The same is being felt in Formula 1. If you kept track of Formula 1 since the 1990s, you'd remember reading or hearing that Michael Schumacher had a superb level of fitness in which his heart rate and blood pressure were like an average person's rate whilst relaxed even when he was knocking out lap after lap during a race. The thing is, in Formula 1 today, everyone has learned from him and fitness of all Formula 1 drivers has jumped leaps and bounds. You don't get to see any Nigel Mansell physiques out there these days if you know what I mean. And this is also why its so much tougher for any one driver to totally dominate as the package is complete nowadays. Skill, physique, as well as fitness is paramount.

It's all about conforming to a certain winning formula these days and it is the same in the world of cars. You can tell that it is going on with car manufacturers of today as everyone benchmarks against everyone else. In the world of ultra performance cars, you can see everyone emulating Porsche or Ferrari when they want to come up with a performance car. Even Lamborghini started out challenging Ferrari in the old days and this is still happening to this day, albeit journalists comparing each new model with the same corresponding Ferrari or Lamborghini.

Now I may be babbling on and on about football and about conformity, but this brings me to a piece of news recently announced by Proton on its 5 year plan for Lotus. Sometime mid June, Proton held a press conference in its headquarters in Shah Alam, Malaysia in line with the local launch of the Lotus Evora (above).

The summary of the 5 year plan was basically ditching its lightweight, simplistic designs and begin to produce more upmarket models where it will challenge Porsche and Ferrari in the premium sports car segment. In an effort to return Lotus to profitability and increased sales, Proton believes that Lotus must change from its current position as a builder of niche lightweight performance cars and adopt a strategy based on a new motto: ''Tomorrow's luxury sports car, today''.

This differs from the “Simplify and then just add lightness” principle that Colin Chapman had laid down for all Lotus vehicles to date. Future high end models are predicted to cost £80,000 - £110,000 and will have twin clutch transmissions, variable dampers, active aerodynamics, hybrid engine systems and other types of fuelling, such as methanol/alcohol.

They however did not say if the entry level Elise or Exige will be binned, but I doubt this would happen as bread and butter as base models are still a necessity for any car manufacturer's survival. They however mentioned that the Proton EMAS hybrid city car concept (above) may be evaluated for the Aston Martin Cygnet or a Toyota IQ type of emissions lowering base model at the press conference. I find this a sellout from the sports car point of view and I wonder whether people would want to buy an unsporting Lotus in the first place.

But somehow from a business point of view going upscale makes perfect sense. You see, let's take the Lotus Elise as a starting point. Everyone says that the Lotus Elise is a fabulous driver's car and journalists go on and on about how fantastic it is to drive, how much steering feel it has, its directness, responsiveness, the interaction between the driver and the car, the lightness and all the nice things you can say about a sports car. But the thing is, while they are being bought at a steady pace, they're not actually flying out of showrooms.

The same goes for the Exige, the Europa (about to be discontinued as I type) and the new Evora. Somehow even with the heritage and the heaps of praise, Lotuses actually do not sell. Yes, its a niche market brand but niches do not actually mean profitability. It may mean eccentricity and only for a select group of society.

I mean look at the Exige (above). Anyone taller than 5feet 9 inches and with a waist circumference larger than 40inches may not fit in it at all. Anyone taller than 6feet 5inches and thin may not fit in it too well as the roof seems to be too low. A person who actually buys a Lotus Exige must be a contortionist as he or she must adopt to the 'Lotus position for entry and exiting'. It is close to being accepted as an official yoga position in my opinion. You see, the side sills are thick, the seats super low, the roof super low and the steering does not move out of the way. It is close to agony for a fat bloke like me to attempt entry into an Exige or even an Elise. And if this is so, it is the same for a large portion of the motoring enthusiasts out there.

So even with all those praises, no one would actually rush out and buy one. You would never have any entry issues if you bought a Porsche Boxster, Cayman or a 911. You would never have problems trying to sit in a Ferrari F430 too. The thing with the Exige or Elise is that both cars are not one bit user friendly and people with some money and used to luxuries would want to have a weekend car still with some of the comforts that they have in their daily drives.

The Exige and Elise are too uncompromising. Why should a normal person who earns a lot of dosh want to suffer during weekends when he can spend a bit more for a car that can easily fit him? There are some hard-core enthusiasts who buy Elises, Exiges, Caterhams and Westfields, but these aren't the majority. In order to be profitable and in order to survive, a wider market must be reached. Thus the new direction announced by the people of Proton.

However, one thing that would need to be addressed it the fact that Lotuses of today may smell like they just came from a canoe factory due to fiberglass being used for the body shell on all of its cars today. This and the fact that Lotus isn't known for its build quality may be a detriment to this business plan. Even the new, more 'luxurious' Evora feels slightly cheap compared with, say a Porsche Cayman which it is supposed to also compete with.

Lotus needs to start building cars in lightweight aluminium and carbon fibre instead of that canoe making material if they intend to move up the supercar sales ladder. Carbon fibre also boosts the owner's bragging rights by mentioning to other people that his car is made out of space-age materials or something like that. I mean, how else can you get a guy to buy an expensive Lotus over a Ferrari or a Lamborghini?

Which leads me to a final point as to whether the Lotus name can pull in those who are looking at a Ferrari or a Porsche in the first place. This actually shows that it is an uphill battle to garner more sales and it is not just bumping up the price, changing the basic principles of a company or adding new staff from Ferrari or that sort (Lotus CEO Dany Bahar is an ex-Ferrari man). Proton is asking Lotus to conform to the current supercar standards. Like footballers and race car drivers who have a pretty level playing field today.

But while conforming to these supposed supercar standards has made me realize that Lotus may not be able to go against Porsche, Lamborghini or Ferrari as the Lotus name may not be iconic enough to do so. And this is the most important point to succeed in the supercar market. I mean look at Pagani, they out blinged Ferrari, Lamborghini and Porsche, going the outrageous way of how a supercar should be in order to differentiate their Zonda from the cars made by the companies above. Technology alone may not be a strong point for Lotus to make a change of direction. They may have to continue building Elises and Exiges as these lightweight cars still cater for a market that actually wants Lotus cars to be built this way.

It seems that the more I type, the more shaky this change is that Proton has decided for Lotus. Now what we need to basically do is just wait and see, as come September, at the Paris Motor Show, more news on the Lotus business plan will be announced for us to decipher.