History & Characteristics
The company was founded by UCL graduate engineer Anthony Colin Bruce Chapman (Anthony Colin Bruce Chapman, hereafter Colin Chapman) and Lotus Engineering Limited by Colin Dare. The letter at the top of the Lotus logo is the initials of founder Colin Chapman.
There are many theories about how the name Lotus came to be. More specifically, there are speculations about lotus flowers that evoke daydreaming and lotus flowers that stand out in Buddhism and Hinduism. The founder Chapman often said the word "us lot", which is rumored to have been translated into "lotus". Others believe the name was suggested by Chapman's wife and business partner Hazel. Whatever the true source of the name Lotus, the origin of the word ended up in a maze as Chapman declined.
due to financial difficulties, it handed over a significant stake to General Motors and was in the hands of Romano Artoli, an Italian businessman who briefly owned the Bugatti brand. Before the IMF, it was close to being acquired by Kia Motors, but in 1996, it was acquired by Malaysia's state-run company Proton Holdings.
It is a brand that aims for ultra-light pure supercar, and most models have similar characteristics to motorcycles, with ultra-light bodies of around a ton or less and high-rotation engines from the RPM range with high maximum power. Therefore, you can experience acceleration that varies depending on the driver's weight. Lotus's sports car takes less than five seconds with only a 1.8-liter engine. In Lotus, there is no vicious cycle in which other supercars such as Ferrari increase the engine power again due to the increased weight and the increased body size to mount a heavy V12 engine.
It used as many engines as it had a rough history of several parent companies. The Lotus cars, which were first built after Colin Chapman founded the company, mainly used Ford engines and the Lotus twin-cam four-cylinder engine based on them. Europa used Renault engines, gearboxes and transaxles, and later used Voxhole four-cylinder engines, Lotus's independent four-cylinder and V8 engines. After Chapman's acquisition, General Motors used Isuzu Motors (M100 Elan), the Opel/Voxholze engine (shared with Europa S, Opel Speedster Turbo) and the Rover K-series engine, but most engines used since Proton's acquisition have been modified to suit Lotus's taste.
It was so light that founder Colin Chapman openly said, "It's good to be as light as possible (to the point where it breaks down immediately) if you can hold out until the goal point of race parking." This does not mean that the stiffness of the body is poor. This is because cornering performance is poor if the body is weak. Of course, in the 1970s and 1980s, the suspension was not very developed and the lightness was cornering, so it is said that some of the Lotus race cars in the past had their bodies split in two during the race.