{"id":3287,"date":"2012-04-11T17:06:07","date_gmt":"2012-04-11T16:06:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.seloc.org\/?p=3287"},"modified":"2012-04-11T17:06:07","modified_gmt":"2012-04-11T16:06:07","slug":"lotus-cars-never-let-the-facts-get-in-the-way-of-a-good-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/f.seloc.club\/w691\/index.php\/2012\/04\/11\/lotus-cars-never-let-the-facts-get-in-the-way-of-a-good-story\/","title":{"rendered":"Lotus Cars – Never let the facts get in the way of a good story\u2026."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Amidst ongoing rumours surrounding the future of the company, Lotus Cars have issued the following Press Release.<\/p>\n

Discussion: SELOC Chat – Never let the facts get in the way of a good story.. (lotus press release)<\/a><\/p>\n

Take a little look at what we found online. Don\u2019t you think it\u2019s funny? We do. We had a good old giggle. After all, we love a bit of self irony, just as well really. Although it\u2019s funny, this one\u2019s not accurate but then again, why let the facts get in the way of a good story? The inconvenient truth is \u2013 surprise, surprise \u2013 we have never said that there are no problems at Lotus.<\/span><\/p>\n

So whilst lots of people obviously feel the need to comment on Lotus\u2019 current situation in the absence of proper facts or evidence, we can\u2019t ignore these particular mistruths any longer even if we would like to, so we have decided to turn a negative into a positive and use this hilarious piece of \u2018art\u2019 to set the record straight regarding the status quo at Group Lotus and try to return a little stability to a fast changing situation. <\/p>\n

False rumour #1:<\/strong> Dany Bahar is no longer CEO of Group Lotus.
\nFact:<\/strong> Rubbish \u2013 Dany Bahar still is.<\/p>\n

False rumour #2:<\/strong> Dato\u2019 Sri Syed is no longer Managing Director of Proton.
\nFact:<\/strong> Again rubbish. He still is.<\/p>\n

You can thank good old Tony Fernandes for these two. Don\u2019t take everything he tweets too seriously \u2013 perhaps he\u2019s still frustrated about owning Caterham instead of Lotus and the fact that he fights HRT and Marussia instead of Mercedes and Ferrari in F1.<\/p>\n

And whilst we\u2019re on the subject of jokes – do you know the latest F1 joke? Mike Gascoyne, Caterham Group\u2019s Chief Technical Officer, has gone missing. Why? He\u2019s looking for the 30 to 40 points he predicted for the last F1 season. Funny.<\/p>\n

Speaking of F1: It seems that one special so called \u2018independent\u2019 source is at the root of the lion\u2019s share of damaging rumours and misleading stories. The delightful Joe Saward which leads us nicely to\u2026.<\/p>\n

False rumour #3:<\/strong> Joe Saward is JUST an independent journalist.
\nFact:<\/strong> He is an active Director for the Caterham Group.<\/p>\n

And unlike some, we don\u2019t want to get too personal, so we\u2019ll leave it to you to judge how \u2018independent\u2019 his stories about Lotus are.<\/p>\n

False rumour #4:<\/strong> Group Lotus is no longer involved in F1.
\nFact:<\/strong> Lotus F1 Team and Group Lotus have reshaped their commercial relationship earlier this year. The new governance agreement signifies the continued commitment of Group Lotus to the team and the sport.<\/p>\n

Group Lotus\u2019 branding and marketing rights and subsequent activities remain unaffected by the new agreement until at least 2017. Alongside continued branding and title partnership status, Group Lotus is also the exclusive master licensee for all Lotus F1 Team merchandise.<\/p>\n

The new agreement was reached following Group Lotus owners Proton providing team owners Genii with a \u00a330m loan which is repayable within three years. In order to secure the loan Genii used 100% of the F1 team\u2019s assets as collateral meaning that under the conditions of the loan agreement Proton have been given full title guarantee to all plant, machinery, show cars, computers, office and the Lotus F1 Team headquarters.<\/p>\n

In addition Proton retains the rights to purchase 10% of the F1 team. Another 10% share option will be activated if the team default on their loan obligations with Proton.<\/p>\n

Again we leave it to your judgement how \u2018bad\u2019 Lotus\u2019 current situation in F1 is. And speaking of bad situations\u2026..<\/p>\n

False rumour #5:<\/strong> Group Lotus is going into administration.
\nFact:<\/strong> Rubbish. The takeover of our parent company Proton by DRB-HICOM couldn\u2019t have come at a worse time, but up until that point Proton was (and still remains) fully committed to our five year business plan to create jobs and to expand the factory and business. With the takeover process the funding has been restricted and DRB-HICOM is taking time to understand what to do with the business. DRB-HICOM is currently in the middle of due diligence of Group Lotus and there have been and continue to be positive discussions between Group Lotus senior management and senior management at DRB-HICOM both here in Hethel and in Malaysia. At no point has DRB-HICOM indicated to Group Lotus that it intends to put the company into administration. The over-active rumour mill is seriously damaging our business reputation, image and credibility but it is what it is.<\/p>\n

The simple fact is, and we haven\u2019t denied this – Lotus is going through a very difficult phase at the moment but we are showing true fighting spirit every day in trying to keep this vision alive. This is also a fact \u2013 no matter what people outside of Lotus may say or tweet or blog.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Amidst ongoing rumours surrounding the future of the company, Lotus Cars have issued the following Press Release. Discussion: SELOC Chat – Never let the facts get in the way of a good story.. (lotus press release) Take a little look at what we found online. Don\u2019t you think it\u2019s funny? We do. We had a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[197,228,397,514,571,669,680],"class_list":["post-3287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-seloc","tag-dany-bahar","tag-drb-hicom","tag-group-lotus","tag-lotus-cars","tag-media","tag-press-release","tag-proton"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/f.seloc.club\/w691\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/f.seloc.club\/w691\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/f.seloc.club\/w691\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/f.seloc.club\/w691\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/f.seloc.club\/w691\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/f.seloc.club\/w691\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3287\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/f.seloc.club\/w691\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/f.seloc.club\/w691\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/f.seloc.club\/w691\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}