Business Class by Lotus

Production of the new mid-engined Lotus coupe, the Europa S is scheduled to commence in July 2006 at the Lotus manufacturing facility at Norfolk, UK.



The Lotus tag line for the Europa is "Business Class by Lotus". I guess we will have to wait and see what the others say.

The new Lotus Europa S, is a Grand Tourer (GT) inspired two-seater with a 2.0 L turbocharged engine. It weighs just 995 kg with a maximum speed of approximately 225 km/h (140mph).


Back View


Front View


Side View

According to the Lotus press release, the Europa S has a larger boot / luggage compartment and easier cabin access than the Lotus Elise,

They stressed that the Europa S is not a derivative of the Elise or the Exige and has been allocated a separate Lotus type number (Type 121 - the Elise and Exige are both Type 111).

The car will be sold in all markets where the Lotus brand is present, except for the US and Canada. Read somewhere that it is because the Opel/Vauxhall built turbo engine has not been certified to meet emissions requirements for those nations.

Final pricing and full specifications haven't been announced yet but the price is
expected to be around £33000 (49000 Euros).

Chip Foose

One of my most favourite shows on TV is “Rides” on the Discovery channel. What I love about this show is the way that people take run-down cars that would have been otherwise destined for the scrap yard, and turn them into beautiful and amazing creations of automotive art.



It was on one of the series that I was introduced to Chip Foose and his amazing designs. Now a legend, Chip was the youngest member ever inducted into the Hot Rod Hall of Fame at the young age of 31.

He has also won the prestigious AMBR (America's Most Beautiful Roadster) Award twice – in 1999 and 2000. he was also involved with six different AMBR winners, including the 1995 winner the "Smoothster", the 1996 winner "Boydster", the 2001 winner "Impact" (designed by Chip and finished by Barry White), and the 2003 winner "Boydster II' (designed by Chip and finished by Bobby Alloway).

This year Chip was inducted into the San Francisco Rod and Custom Motorcycle Hall of Fame.

He has designed and built street rods, customs, studio vehicles and show cars for films such as Blade Runner, RoboCop, and Gone in 60 Seconds.

Currently he is operating Foose Design, an automotive and product design company specializing in illustration, graphics, surfacing, and complete construction of automobiles and automotive-related products. He also stars in TLC’s series "Overhaulin”, which began in April 2004.

Check out his designs here.

Proton Chancellor Launched

This follows my earlier post. Proton's new model, the Chancellor was launched at Proton Edar Sdn Bhd's headquarters in Subang Jaya yesterday.

It will be priced at RM138,000.

Proton expects to sell 1,000 units within one year.

Here is what other Bloggers, Mark and Bernard have to say.

The Global Car

Updated: 23 October 2010

Going through old articles which I had printed out and had accumulated over the years, I came across this great one by Paul Si on the Chevrolet Optra.

Front-side shot of a first generation Chevrolet Optra (localised variant), in Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia.
Source: Two hundred percent.

Also known as the Lacetti, this is a car that defies convenient labeling.

Before I talk about the particular model itself, I would like to talk a little bit about Chevrolet brand. It was named after Louis Chevrolet a famous racer and pioneer of automotive innovations from Switzerland.

I remember that some Muslims in Malaysia were turned off by the brand symbol because they thought it was a cross. Stupid! They did't know that it represents a 'Bowtie'. I was surprised to find that many people still have that perception and I am not sure why GM or their representatives in Malaysia are not doing anything to dispel this notion.

Ok about the Chevrolet Optra. Regarding its history, work on it was first started by the engineers of Korean company Daewoo. It was ultimately completed jointly with General Motors experts after the company was taken over and re-named GM Daewoo. The design and styling of the Optra/Lacetti was done by Pininfarina of Italy and suspension developed by Malaysian-owned British firm Lotus.

A 1.8l engine was sourced from GM’s Australian subsidiary, GM Holden, while, German transmission specialists, ZF, supplied the four-speed automatic gearboxes.

The 1.6l engine came from South Korea, which also supplied the five-speed manual box.

The car is built at the GM plant in Rayong, Thailand. One of the vendors is Hicom Automotive Plastics (Thailand) Ltd, wholly owned by DRB-Hicom of Malaysia.

The Optra 1.8l automatic is available from Hicomobil Sdn Bhd and its dealers.

This is a car that has been touched by American, British, French, Italian, Korean, German, Australian and even Malaysian influences.

Truly a Global car.

Trivia: This car was the new reasonably-priced car in Top Gear's "Star in a Reasonably-Priced Car" segment for season 8.

Also read The Optra option.

New Concept Vehicles from Mitsubishi

Mitsubishi Motors Corporation and Mitsubishi Motors North America Inc. will unveil the Concept-CT MIEV hybrid sport compact and new Eclipse Spyder convertible at the 2006 Detroit Motor Show (January 8 to 22 at the Cobo Center in Detroit and open to the general public from January 14)


Mitsubishi Concept- CT MIEV (Image sketch)


Eclipse Spyder (Image sketch)

The Concept-CT1 MIEV2 hybrid 4WD sport compact concept uses an outer rotor type in-wheel motors and a lithium-ion battery system to drive all four wheels. It is targeted at the growing sport compact category.

This next-generation electric vehicle pairs the MIEV concept with a gasoline engine for series-parallel hybrid propulsion, which delivers higher power and realizes longer cruising ranges, to drive all four wheels. It was created by the Mitsubishi Motors R&D of America, Inc. design studio based in Cypress, California.

The new Eclipse Spyder is a convertible version of the Eclipse sporty coupe the company showed at the Detroit Motor Show in January of this year.

It features a soft top which opens and closes at the touch of a switch, with a new powered tonneau panel. The car is powered by either a 2.4-liter in-line 4-cylinder MIVEC3 engine or a 3.8-liter V6 MIVEC engine.

Eclipse Spyder will be produced at the MMNA's facility in Normal, Illinois and is due to go on sale in the spring of 2006.

Hopefully, they will ultimately make their way to the Malaysian market with the required modifications (left hand drive to right hand).

Automatic Scratch Repairing Paint

I first read about this at Aviks's blog. Really interesting innovation that all of us motorists have been waiting for.

From Nissan's web site :

Nissan Motor Co., Ltd., has developed the world’s first clear paint known as “Scratch Guard Coat”, that repairs scratches on painted car surfaces.

The paint contains a newly developed high elastic resin that helps prevent scratches from affecting the inner layers of a car’s painted surface. The scratched surface of a car treated with this paint will return to its original state anywhere from one day to a week, depending on temperature and the depth of the scratch.

The paint is water-repellant and is effective for about three years. It also has a higher resistance to scratches compared with conventional clear paints.

An interesting information I obtained from this piece of news was that car-washing machines account for the majority of scratches to painted car surfaces. According to the Nissan website, vehicles painted with “Scratch Guard Coat” will have only one-fifth the abrasions caused by a car-washing machine compared with a car covered with conventional clear paint.

Car painted with “Scratch Guard Coat” (From the Nissan Website)

New scratches




One week later