Lotus
From GracesGuide
Lotus Cars is a British manufacturer of sports and racing cars based at Hethel, Norfolk.
- The company is based about 10 miles (16 km) south of Norwich and was originally formed as Lotus Engineering Ltd by the influential engineer Colin Chapman, in 1952.
- The Company's first factory was in old stables behind the Railway Hotel in Hornsey. Team Lotus was active and competitive in Formula One racing from 1958 to 1994.
- 1959 Moved from Hornsey to Cheshunt.
- Since the 1960s the company has occupied a modern factory and road test facility at Hethel, near Wymondham. This site is the former RAF Hethel base and the test track uses sections of the old runway.
- 1963 Motor Show exhibitor. Elan 1600, Elite, Super Seven 1500 and Cortina. [1]
- Chapman died of a heart attack in 1982, at the age of 54, having begun life an inn-keeper's son and ended a multi-millionaire industrialist in post-war Britain. The car maker built tens of thousands of successful racing and road cars and won the Formula One World Championship seven times. At the time of his death he was linked with the De Lorean scandal over the use of government subsidies for the production of the De Lorean DMC-12 for which Lotus had designed the chassis.
- In 1986 the company was bought by General Motors.
- On August 27, 1993, GM sold the company, for £30 million, to A.C.B.N. Holdings S.A. of Luxembourg, a company controlled by Italian businessman Romano Artioli, who also owned Bugatti Automobili SpA.
- In 1996 a majority share in Lotus was sold to Perusahaan Otomobil Nasional Bhd (Proton), a Malaysian car company listed on the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange.
- The company also acts as an engineering consultancy, providing engineering development - particularly of suspension - for other car manufacturers. The lesser known Powertrain department is responsible for the design and development of the 4 cylinder engine found in many of GM's Vauxhall, Opel, Saab, and possibly some Saturn cars.
[edit] Sources of Information
- [1] Wikipedia
