Team Lotus Buys Caterham

[Magnum9987]

Tony Fernandes buys Caterham Formula One Update

What do you think this means for the two teams? But more importantly, how do you think this will effect the road cars?

I think we can expect great things from Caterham now. But as to what, I haven't a clue.

[ScionDriver]

Will they now try to make Caterham Lotus Seven or something weird? Who knows what it means, maybe the team will be Caterham in the future, which would seem strange but I suppose anything is possible as Spyker once had an F1 team too.

Was Caterham in trouble though or was this just a buyout for some other reason?

[Ferrer]

This smells of bye, bye Caterham, to me.

[NicFromLA]

This smells of bye, bye Caterham, to me.

Maybe the opposite: Assuming Lotus' plan to take on the MX-5, the Boxster, the 911, the 458 Italia and the CLS63 doesn't work out, in a few years Caterham will be all the Lotus we have left.

[Ferrer]

Yes, but usually whenever a name is bought by a big corporation or a rich business man huge profits are expected.

You can't have huge profits if you customer base is three.

[culver]

Is this Team Lotus or Lotus the car company? I thought the two were separate. Also it reads like the team owner bought Caterham, not the team.

[ScionDriver]

Is this Team Lotus or Lotus the car company? I thought the two were separate. Also it reads like the team owner bought Caterham, not the team.

It is team Lotus, not the car company.

[Kitdy]

What if Group Lotus refuses to sell cars to Caterham do to their beef with Team Lotus?

[Matra et Alpine]

Group Lotus doesn't sell cars to Caterham.
THe arrangement for Caterham to take over the 7 design from Lotus is old and already tested in court over the years.

Interesting politics though as Team Lotus did make sounds about buying Lotus cars a while back. Rebuffed I guess this is their response

[pimento]

I guess they can be Team Caterham now.. will be especially funny if Caterham buys the rights to the current Elise though, given everything else gone on.

[Matra et Alpine]

Would be awesome if it could go the same way the 7 did.
Let Lotus move on to better things, more profit and ensured buyers didn't lose the chance to buy the original idea

[pimento]

I wonder what engines they'll use, what with the Toyota ones ending. I guess they'll start with Ford ones like in the 7, shouldn't be too hard to adapt given their FF roots.

[fpv_gtho]

Could be linked to whatever engine Team Lotus uses in F1 post 2013. Some are suggesting they could try get a road version of the turbo 1.6

[Magnum9987]

Could be linked to whatever engine Team Lotus uses in F1 post 2013. Some are suggesting they could try get a road version of the turbo 1.6

Turbo stroker hayabusa motor perhaps? 12000 RPM and a shit load of boost equal 500HP on a whim. Significantly lighter than the current supercharged 2.4L v8 at that. Hell, a Turbo charged Hayabusa pushing 650HP just did a 248 on the Texas Mile. And that had stock internals, save 8:1 pistons. Now put a larger crank, perhaps some heads, lightweight conrods, cams, and you've got a rev happy beast that can safely push 550hp. Oh god its a dream. Yes, I've thought about doing this before.

[Matra et Alpine]

Turbo bike blocks do NOT Last long
There just isn't enough meat in them to cope with the high loads for any length of time.
A few are raced in the sprints/hillclimb national events here and most of them are off the track more than on it