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| Dany Bahar during funner days |
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| Lotus Elan Concept |
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| Lotus Esprit Concept |
In addition to becoming obsolete and pointless, Lotus is now facing a lawsuit from Dany Bahar, its ousted CEO. Bahar is suing Lotus and its parent
company DRB-Hicom for wrongful dismissal,
to the tune of around R90 million.
The company got rid of Bahar about two months ago. Reasons were
not made public but it’s highly speculated that DRB-Hicom, which owns
Lotus owner Proton Motors, was
seriously not impressed with his
running of the British brand. Some might even say his running down of it. The lawsuit will be defended and papers
have already been filed from both sides.
According to DRB, “Dany Bahar was dismissed after an investigation into his stewardship of Lotus. We
believe we have acted properly at
all times.”
Bahar joined Lotus in 2009
from Ferrari where he was a vice president
for the Global Brand. He promised to take on Ferrari and Porsche
head-on with products like a revamped Esprit,
Elan and Elise among others. Analysts reckoned at the time Bahar
needed around €800 million (about R8.4
billion) to successfully develop and take these to market. Clearly the money
didn’t come through because these cars have not materialised.
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