autoevolution Poll: Split Opinions of Lotus' Future

Ask any automotive enthusiast to name a carmaker that comes with a special philosophy, aimed at offering pure, unmediated driving pleasure and you can be pretty sure that the name “Lotus” will be pronounced.

We are talking about the fact that Lotus cars are all about keeping the weight down and allowing the driver to enjoy every moment spent behind the wheel. This means that the British company considers many comfort features used by other companies as unnecessary. However, this is not true anymore, as the automotive producer took the world by surprise, rewriting its rule book and showing us the result(s) at the Paris Auto Show.

This is why we decided to ask our readers to give a verdict on Lotus' new direction that has ditched “lightweight & go-fast” for “luxury and ultra-high performance”. All said and done. Using our poll section we asked our users to tell us if they agree with Lotus’s upmarket move or not.

Now that you’ve all clicked your box of choice, its time to let you know what the results are. We must tell you that there was an extremely tight race between the two options.

The “Collin Chapman [founder of the company] is rolling in his grave - their’add lightness’ legacy just went down the drain” choice won, but only by a small margin, as 51 percent of you went for this one.

48 percent of you consider that “Finally, Lotus Cars will compete with the big dogs now! I see a bright future for them” is the right thing to say about the British automaker’s move.

We’ll remind you that Lotus brought an army of five performance concepts to Paris (Esprit, Eterne, Elite, Elise and Elan), with the production versions being scheduled to arrive starting from 2014. The company also introduced the City Car concept at the event.