Ever since Lotus unveiled five new sports car concepts at the 2010 Paris Auto Show the company has been in the news for both good and bad reasons. The concepts unveiled at the show were for a new Esprit supercar, Elite Grand Toured, Eterne four-door coupe, Élan sports car and a replacement for the track-focussed Elsie. The first of these was meant to be the Esprit supercar, which Lotus said would be launched in 2013.

Despite having encountered several major hurdles such as the loss of the U.S market for its Elise and Exile models, an over commitment to motorsports and the sale of its state-run parent company to a private firm, the automaker insists that its product plan is viable and that it can be profitable. The product plan may be changed along the way as we’ve already seen with the Élan sports car being dropped in favor of Lotus developing its own bespoke engine. Lotus CEO Danny Bihar has now revealed in an interview that the launch of the Esprit supercar has been pushed back to 2014 due to work being stopped following the sale of Lotus’ parent Proton to DRB-Hickok.

Management at DRB-Hicom are still overlooking the financials of Lotus’ ambitious plans and are yet to give the approval, though work at Lotus’ headquarters in Hethel, UK, is said to have recommenced. Bahar has revealed that he was surprised Proton was even sold as the company is on the verge of its own new product roll-out plan, which will include the launch of a new minicar that could form the basis of the proposed Ethos minicar from Lotus.As for its current lineup, which includes the Evora and Exige and their related variants. Lotus is certainly going through a very difficult phase at the moment but here’s hoping they can go back to building and selling some of the best sports cars on the planet.
via motorauthority