For a while now, there had been a well known secret that Lotus’ parent company Proton was planning to build the next generation Lotus Esprit in Malaysia. Well, plans have changed, and Autocar confirms that Lotus is moving personal and tooling back to the UK and fully intend to build the Esprit and Europa there. See the rest of this post for the full story.
Pure speculation, but…when you look at this move, and the VW Ecoracer (looking like a thinly disguised Elise chassis), it makes one wonder if Proton is planning on selling its ownership in Lotus?
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Lotus will be building 199 special ‘Sports Racer’ Elises worldwide. Color choices are Ardent Red with a large white stripe down the middle flanked on either side by smaller white stripes, or Nightfall Blue with two conventional white stripes (both have white side mirrors). The rest is pretty much your typical Elise, with touring package, sports package, LSD, traction control, and hardtop all included as standard equipment for this edition. The beautiful extruded aluminum pedal arms are being replaced by steel arms in this and all 2006 Elises (though they’re supposedly lighter). Read more at 
Well now, this is an odd one. VW unveiled their EcoRacer concept, destined for production soon. This 100mpg sports car sounds a LOT like the Elise. Some examples: the frame structure on sides of passenger tub (high enough to require a gullwing roof), integral tubular roll hoop, similar looking windshield, similar weight, similar dash structure. There have been rumors that VW was looking to acquire Lotus’ parent company Proton, and I think what we’re seeing here is a VW-badged version of the next generation Lotus Elise. You can read more about the VW at 
