I'm sure that Lotus is quite profitable in their engineering division. And that quite a few cars have benefited from the work performed on them. The DeLorean included. I feel that the double "Y" chassis w/the VIRM underbody is a great improvement over the original seperate front crossmember & rear subframe held together by the GRP underbody. Hey, if you want to nit-pick, I even prefer the final design of the intierior vs. the one on the prototype. The point to my posting is that while Lotus did a good amount of work and research on the DeLorean, they failed to properly complete it. And where Lotus did not complete their work properly by way of not dedicating themselves to the DeLorean 100% as they should have, this has caused problems for the DMC-12, and their owners. Is my statement a broad one? Yes, it is. Is it based upon "very little information"? Well, that depends on how you look at things. Hands on expierience, yes. Hands on, I've really only delt with my DeLorean. But, there are quite a few things here. We have failing pivot bolts on the rear trailing arms, a front end recall kit for both the lower ball joints and the front frame of the chassis, failing pivot bolts for the shift linkage, snapping muffler brackets, the list can go on. Over all information? No. Colin Chapman was the man credited with most all of the innovations @ Lotus. And he worked on the DeLorean. Now with him gone, GM's influence over Lotus with their own lack-luster reputation as it is (since after all they did own it), combined with the below-par treatment that the DeLorean recieved, I would say that puts them into a bad light as far as the dedication/completion of their work goes. Even a quick search on Google using "Lotus Esprit Problem" yielded some interesting results. Even the Esprit appears to have problems. Things ranging from replacement of "U" joints, to use of substandard hoses & materials, failing motor mounts, to even hazardous fires caused by catalytic converters @ low speeds. So I guess that throws out my previous posting that Lotus owners have no problems (I assumed, and we all know what assumption is the mother of :p ). Yes, that is some pretty broad information for a pretty broad statement. -Robert vin 6585 "X" --- In dmcnews@xxxx, "Mike Griese" <mike.griese@xxxx> wrote: > That is a pretty broad statement to make based > on very little information. Lotus brings in far > more money (and profit) on it's engineering > consultancy business than it has ever made making > race or road cars. In fact, it's the contract > engineering side of the company that the previous > owners were most interested in. Most sports cars > from major manufacturers have benefitted from > suspension and chassis tuning by Lotus and > some have even had engine tuning done by Lotus. > > Mike > > [snip] > > But if you own a car made by another mfg who > contracted work to Lotus, be wary of what they designed. > > -Robert > vin 6585 "X"