Re: [DML] Re: New Delorean production....

[mike.griese@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

This is where your knowledge runs out and speculation takes over.

At the time of the DeLorean, Lotus was comprised of 3 divisions - 
the race group, the road car division and Lotus Engineering.  All 
three were run separately from each other, under common ownership.
For most of it's life, Lotus Engineering has provided the bulk of 
the profits to Group Lotus.  In fact, GM and Toyota bought Lotus
primarily for the engineering division, not the road car division.

Lotus Engineering has and will develop cars that are faster than
what Lotus Cars offers.  They did it then and they do it now - 
the Tesla and the Vauxhall are two recent examples.  Their primary 
skills are in suspension development and engine tuning and they 
have contributed to a large number of sports cars from every 
manufacturer.  Competition with Lotus Cars is not a consideration
for the contracts Lotus Engineering takes on.  By the way, GM
didn't "steal" the V8 for the Espirt.  Corvette engines have always
been based on production GM blocks, and Lotus would never have
had the opportunity to build an engine for the Esprit base on GM
components.  

DeLorean did not give Lotus much time to design a car, much less
develop it.  DeLorean did give Lotus a preliminary design, a performance
brief, production cost targets, and, most importantly, a time target.  Those 
parameters, more than anything else, determined what the DeLorean 
was going to be.  DeLorean himself did not want Lotus to directly use 
Esprit design because he was building HIS car, not a rebadged Lotus.
Given more time, many of the problem areas would have been sorted 
out, had DeLorean allowed Lotus to continue working with DMC.  

--
Mike


-------------- Original message from "cbl1739" <cbl302@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>: -------------- 


> Basically as stated on my previous post,Lotus DID not want 
> a "better" car than theirs,so you nailed the description right on 
> the head as far as Lotus 
> was into Engineering of the Delorean frame/body etc,they of course 
> made it "basic safe" engineering wise,BUT as you can tell they went 
> with the BASIC "Minumin Engineering" standards,in other words they 
> were only interested in getting as much Money out of the Engineering 
> of the Delorean, BUT making it subpar to their Lotus,if you notice 
> they engineered it using the NON TURBO Lotus specs,all the way down 
> to the 4 lug wheels.They of course could have used the engineering 
> of the Turbo Esprit,but why make a Better car than their car. 
> Later GM did the same thing to Lotus,when they bought Lotus 
> Engineering,they "Stole"(outright took) the Lotus V8,that Lotus had 
> Developed for their upcoming(1988 or 89 V8 Lotus Esprit),and GM 
> turned around and used it for their Limited Production ZR1 
> Corvettes,which meant Lotus Engineering had to start from Scratch,to 
> Develope a new V8 for their Esprits,which of course they did,and put 
> it into their production cars.What goes around comes around(and 
> bites you in the ass) 
> 

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]



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