EliseInfo.com

Due partly to less than stellar sales in the US, Lotus Cars is cutting around 200 jobs. However, they’ll be introducing three new models in the next three years, so hopefully this is just a minor setup for the citizens of Hethel!

The upcoming three models are the new Esprit coupe, a 2+2 arriving in December of 2009; a vague Lotus/Proton high performance model set to launch in May of 2008, and a new mid range Lotus, due in December 2008.

You can read more about both these stories via the links above!

Pistonheads has an extensive interview with Mike Kimberley, the new CEO of Group Lotus. He has a long history with Lotus, with a brief interlude at GM and Lamborghini back in the 90’s. You can read it in the rest of the post, or see the original interview with pictures over at Pistonheads.
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Lotusowners.com has what I believe are the first pictures of the 2007 Elise. The changes are, as expected, minimal. The headlights are the most obvious change - note the addition of the small DRL at the top. The front and rear clamshells appear identical, so it’s unclear whether Lotus has done anything behind them to meet the 2.5mph bumper standards, or if they just got their exemption extended. Oddly, the Lotus rep that had brought the car refused to open the engine cover, so there is a possibility that they’ve made some tweaks to the engine - or perhaps added a supercharger option… You can see more pictures here.

Lotus has some cool new videos online, click on them as desired: Elise S, Exige, Europa.

Lotus Cars USA has cut a deal to some car rental companies, giving them Elises at a huge discount (with a rumored promised buy-back after ten months). It’s great to see them get out there for more people to experience, though I could not imagine a more fragile rental car. The front end is prone to scrapes from driveways and parking lot curbs, and the car has no bumpers, just very expensive clamshells. Still, I wish them luck! You can read the press release here.

Quaife is offering all sorts of transmission options for the Toyota-powered Elises, such as close ratio gear sets, different final drive ratios, and of course limited slip differentials. They’re also working on a sequential gearbox! Read more about it here.

The 1K Project is a cool digitally created video, using the custom track configurator from the game Trackmania to render 1,000 sports cars racing through a stunt-filled setting. Pretty impressive worth, and worth checking out. You can view it over at Autoblog.