What does Lotus remind us of? It is our national flower. It is also a car manufacturer based in Norfolk, UK and has a Formula one team, which borrows engines from Renault for racing. Lotus on the other hand is known for many adventures on four wheels. Lotus car manufacturers are known for making the best chassis in the world. They have tuned numerous cars for various manufacturers. To give you an example, they are involved in making the chassis for the famed Nissan GT-R. Albeit, Lotus makes cars for themselves in a very unusual way.
Lotus takes flagship engines from reliable manufacturers like Honda and Toyota and supercharges them to give it the extra punch. Later on, they plonk the engines in the middle of their extremely light and stiff sports cars and make them go around corners exactly like you dreamed off, flat, quick and with tones of grip. Lotus has made its appearance like background music in a movie when it comes to their Indian ventures. Long ago, Lotus stepped in and tuned the chassis on the Mahindra Scorpio (no one is perfect at first).
Not so long ago, Lotus stepped in and tuned Force Motors’ SUV to make it better and less floppy given the fact it is a barge. Moreover, very recently the Sail twins from Chevrolet got their chassis tuned from Lotus. Chevrolet went ahead and biased the suspension towards ride quality over dynamics. The reason we mentioned all the ventures to make you realize that Lotus is not unknown and because they are about to enter a highly competitive and established segment in the automotive world, Motorcycles!
Lotus has announced that they will be entering the motorcycle market with a 200 BHP motorcycle. Yes! That is right, they are tapping into the niche market of hyper bikes. Lotus says this bike will be the best looker on the road and engineers will focus on design, ergonomics and high-end technologies. The bike is code named C-01. The venture is being commenced with partnership with Kodewa German auto racing team, car designer Daniel Simon and the Holzer group.
Daniel Simon is no ordinary man. He is responsible for carving out Bugatti cars and has designed the world famous Tron motorcycle for Disney in 2010. So finally, we can expect Tron styled motorcycle? Not so sure, but it may end up borrowing some cues from it. The motorcycle will be developed with Formula One experience and technologies. Carbon fiber, titanium and aerospace steel is bound to be used for this challenging venture. All the latest equipment is on disposal for making the Lotus C-01 motorcycle reliable with equipment and attention to detail making sure that it rolls out without any production faults.
Given the rich past of Lotus when it comes to design and quality, we just hope the motorcycle turns out with Lotuses core beliefs. Light, dynamic, fast and immense fun. The C-01 could be a game changer for Lotus and may get the cash registers ringing again because the car manufacturing business is a bit cold given the market scenario. Given the fact that the hyper bike market is dominated by Japanese and single European manufacturer BMW, we wish Lotus all the best for their venture and welcome them to the world of two wheels.
