You really can’t be surprised that Lotus has confirmed it plans to produce an SUV, with sales starting in 2019. But you can certainly ask—very politely, of course—whether this is an avenue really suited to what the British sports car maker does best.
According to reports in Auto Express, the Lotus SUV will be targeted at the Porsche Macan and other compact premium crossovers. Sales initially will be restricted to China, but if that works, then the plan is to bring it to other markets later on, possibly including the U.S.
Lotus’s owner, Malaysian conglomerate DRB-Hicom, has already signed a joint-venture agreement with Chinese company Goldstar Heavy Industrial, and the new model will be built in China. There’s no confirmation on what will underpin it, but when we interviewed Gales last year he suggested that a platform from Lotus’s parent company Proton could be adapted for future front-engined models.
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That casts into doubt on Gales’ reported claim the car will be lighter and better than the Porsche Macan. Lotus’s ongoing relationship with Toyota over engine supply for its sportier models makes it possible the finished car also would have Toyota power.
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More controversial, Gales has also told the U.K.’s Daily Telegraph that he believes “if Colin Chapman was alive he would probably build an SUV as well.”
We grant that’s entirely possible, but it does seem unlikely for a man who loved both sports cars and shaving weight from them. For some context, the tallest Lotus product produced under Chapman’s management of the company was the 1966 Ford Lotus-Cortina, which stood 55 inches high, and the heaviest was the 1980 Lotus Esprit Turbo, which weighed 2685 pounds.
After starting in radio, Mike Duff broke into writing about cars more than 25 years ago.
Since then he has reviewed several thousand, working for major outlets on both sides of
the Atlantic. In the U.K. he held senior staff positions with CAR, Autocar and evo, and in
the U.S. he wrote for MPH and Autoweek before becoming Car and Driver’s European
Editor for ten years. Being a Brit means he also understands most of the rules of cricket
