Bahar Suspended

[Stirling_Villeneuve]

Is one of them a dodgy looking chrome red Evora?

[red vtec]

There is a big article in the mail on Suday, saying he has been spending on Private jets, getting friendly with Swizz and his wife, doing his house up etc etc..

[richardvg]

Pity one of those missing cars was not in my possession ...LOL

[Stirling_Villeneuve]

Hmmm...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/markets/article-2153702/The-high-living-Lotus-boss-row-1m-flying-expenses.html

[NedaSay]

Hum... Ok no, just no...This is not the image a CEO should present ever!

[Kimbers]

Must............... resist............. comment.................

As for the mentioned articles.It amazes me that anyone, DB included, can try and justify £1million (or is it 3) in private jets and helicopters when he was laying off 150 Norfolk workers. Or that the £400,000 refurb bill on his RENTAL property is "Acceptable".

I frankly don't give an fcuk that it was written into his contract! Would a reputable CEO with morals spend £1 million on private jets when he could keep all those employee's in a job?

Well I am in the position to be able to state categorically that they wouldn't.

[Iconic Ride]

Was Bahar on Bib's flight to Geneva? And when was the Bibster's last remodel?

Important safety tip: If you see an Ernst and Young rep approaching your doorstep, Run!

[TBD]

Would a reputable CEO with morals spend £1 million on private jets when he could keep all those employee's in a job?

Well I am in the position to be able to state categoricagically that they wouldn't.

Ahem, where should I start the list? Lehman Bros., Citibank, ....

[Loose Cannon]

It's looking increasingly like DB isn't going to be needing that gorgeous pearl white Esprit any more, if he's giving away cars can I have it?

[brian.harper@netassoc.net]

That million a year in travel is a bargain....

Over on this side of the pond we have Obama running through 300-400 million a year for Air Force 1, mostly for travel for his personal political agend or vacations. And Obama only makes $400k a year, but probably steals at least 10 times that much a year I expect.

The new owners I guess expect DB to drive a fiat 500 1500 miles to a F1 event and pay his own petrol, what great use of his time. Calculate out how much more work time he has by reducing travel time by a factor of 2 or 3 or more, when you are paying the guy 1.2 million pounds a year. I would also expect there is some payback by him being at these events, I don't think he is going to sit in the stands and have a hot dog and a pint.

You have to spend money to make money.

Brian

[Iconic Ride]

A little "balance" is in order...

"Our inbox has been inundated with questions about two separate chain e-mails about President Barack Obama's use of Air Force One in 2010, and about the number of people who accompanied him on a trip to England in 2009. But the suggestion that Obama is traveling more often on the presidential plane, and traveling with larger entourages on international trips than past presidents, is badly mistaken."

FULL ANSWER

http://www.factcheck...ling-president/

We now return to our normal cat fight programming.

[Guy W Johnson]

CBS and Los Angeles Kiss the man ass every day of the week!!

[TBD]

Could we get back to Lotus on this forum

[ramjet]

Start a topic somewhere Thomas.

You have the power!

[Iconic Ride]

What? You don't see the connections, Thomas? Obama's father was born in Kenya. At the time it was still a colony of the British Empire. His mother, who is of predominantly English ancestry, worked for the CIA as a "cultural anthropologist" in Indonesia looking for commies (In 1967, with then 7yr old Barack tagging along), and the CIA has always been in bed with MI6 to varying degrees.

And then there's the Tesla (a Lotus derived product) connection:

"Tesla brings political pull, as well. Steve Westly, who has “bundled” hundreds of thousands of dollars for Obama, sat on Tesla’s board from March 2007 to December 2009, a time period in which DOE announced its loan commitment to the Silicon Valley company. His Westly Group was also a financial supporter of Tesla Motors until Tesla went public in 2010, and Westly himself continues to invest in the company. He now serves on an advisory board to the Energy Secretary.

Tesla’s founder and CEO, Elon Musk, is a hearty political contributor who has primarily backed Democrats, including Obama. According to published reports, another Tesla investor is Nick Pritzker, a donor to Obama and a cousin of Penny Pritzker, the national finance chair of Obama’s 2008 campaign."

And need I mention that Elon Musk was a co-founder of Paypal, which service you likely used to gain your TLF "green credentials" adjacent to your avatar. Musk was born in South Africa, another touchstone of the British Empire's historical effort to take over the world in Knights Templar fashion.

And so it goes. Such is the stuff of conspiracy theories and "anti-Christ Muslim presidents" intent on ruining the global economy for personal gain, galavanting about the planet in expensive jets (the original post's "guilt by association" comparison to Dany's jetsetting activities), spreading havoc worldwide at every stop. Not a bad gig for a surf rat born in Hawaii.

Rant over.

[Moxie]

My brain hurts!

So, will the three Malaysian guys stay indefinitely or are they a stop-gap to a DB replacement, and have packs of rabid headhunters been unleashed across the automotive executosphere?

[JLStrange]

My concern is that the Esprit development will be slowed down again and any new management will want to re-examine it again and go for a new direction. This is what's normally done when new management comes on board.

[Iconic Ride]

As the New Esprit is well along in its development, and is likely the only new offering with significant hope of actually making it into the showroom/forecourt in the medium term, one can only hope that the Malaysian triumvirate would think long and hard before abandoning Lotus' single most promising glimmer of potential future profits. For them to seek "a new direction" from square one at this juncture would place the proverbial straw upon the camel's back. Regime change need not always be draconian in nature. Regardless of who eventually takes the helm (and here's hoping they do indeed find someone with some sort of traditional ties to the Lotus ethos), he (they?) would be best off taking advantage of the accumulated wisdom of the existing workforce and their long standing commitment to the marque. Any major reshuffling of the historical roots of the company at this time would be tantamount to corporate suicide. Bahar's five year plan has perhaps been a bit optimistically too ambitious, particularly from a funding standpoint, but starting from scratch is not really an option, IMO. Refine the program and press on sez I.

[Exploded]

My concern is that the Esprit development will be slowed down again and any new management will want to re-examine it again and go for a new direction. This is what's normally done when new management comes on board.

And they would we fools if they didn't. Bahar said he would need another $200 million until they could bring out the Esprit, remember that Hicom bough the whole of Proton + Lotus for "only" $407 million. Why would they spend another $200 million to bring just 1 model??? Bahar should not have offended Toyota and bring the Esprit with Supercharged Lexus IS-F 5.0 V8 engine, which was already a very far developed car when Bahar came in. We would have been driving this car for more than a year now, for a fraction of the cost!!!

The first thing the new management team needs to do, is make sure production is running at full speed and have chat with the all important suppliers. As many haven't seen money on time, I am very sure they treat all orders for Lotus with the biggest caution. I'm sure Lotus will need to pay them at order, not at delivery. Without suppliers, no cars, simple. If there is not coming in any money, it won't last too long.

And when those processes are done, it's time to speed up development again, so I think the development of the Esprit is, at this moment, the least of their concern!

[ramjet]

What do you mean by "Bahar should not have offended Toyota...".

If I recall correctly, Lotus pressed on with developing their own engine at the behest and feedback from future potential customers. Even a lot of people on here said they should develop their own engine for their flagship model.

[Exploded]

to quote Bahar:

Mr Bahar said regardless of how much you tune a Toyota engine, it will still be a Toyota engine at the end of the day and Lotus wants to establish itself as a more unique brand. As a result, Lotus engineers have done the entire engine development program in house. The first prototypes of the next-generation Lotus Cars are expected to start testing before year’s end.

I honestly believe, this came on very hard in Japan. You can steel money from the Japanese and they will be very angry, but you can offend them, as Bahar openly did in the worldwide press and they will be outraged! I for one, believe the new "Lotus" V8 did not came now because they really wanted to, but because they needed to bring an own engine as Bahar screwed up big time in that interview. You know, the whole survey of the engine was rhetorical, even a 5 year old, could predict the outcome BEFORE it even started. How else was Bahar going to defend the ridiculous asking price of around $200.000?

[Kimbers]

Mike

Gert is absolutely correct in that the "Esprit"...MES to give it its working name, was not far off. The car was there in base form, design and implementation was starting to come on line when MJK retired.

The car would have been out for a year now, no doubt at all in my mind of that. And it shared a common design link with the Evora suspension/chassis etc.

There should be no doubt that if the engines that it was designed to house (and it may have been Japanese....or German) then the car would be on the road by now.

[ramjet]

I didn't say that the esprit was not far off, or could not have been far off. I vaguely recall the quote that Gert has mentioned, but I do distinctly recall a lot of people on here saying the Esprit should have it's own engine and then a report saying that was a lot of the feedback from the original unveiling of the new line up.

But I do live in Australia, so maybe I've got it all upside-down.

[Exploded]

There are some drawings of that supercharged "Lexus" engine on this forum, somewhere. It's not that secret.

Especially in the US the Evora got some bad publicity as if it has "a Camry" engine, but only the people who have never driven an Evora say such a thing. I have driven a Camry and a NA Evora, except from the looks, those engines rev and accelerate nowhere nea the same. Lotus has changed the mapping completely. And even with the newer software the NA Evora drives even so much better, than the launch editions do. In fact, on public roads I find it somewhat stupid to spend the extra money for an S, on track of course it's a different story.

If taxes in Belgium weren't so high for a 3.5 V6 engine, I would drive an Evora 2+2, instead of an Elise and an Esprit...

Sorry to go even further off topic ;-)

Edited June 6, 2012 by Exploded

[ramjet]

Never said it was a secret Gert.

What I referred to earlier (as posted by Bibs)

http://www.thelotusforums.com/forums/topic/46011-lexus-lfa/#entry378395