Future models put on hold by Lotus Lockdown

When Proton announced they may sell Lotus to a large Malaysian industrial conglomerate (DRB-Hicom), everyone knew the future of the Esprit supercar would be in danger, and everyone was right. Lotus boss Dany Bahar announced that development of all future models, including the Esprit has been suspended.
As a result of the sale, Lotus is taking an NBA type break with a three month "lockdown" - meaning that only normal trading activities could be continued. Translated, this means that the production of the current models will continue at a reduced level, but the development of the future models has been delayed. This decision obviously affects customers because the official market launch of the new Exige S and Evora GTE have been delayed, and we won’t get to see the production Esprit until early 2014.
"This difficult period for Lotus finishes at the end of March and that’s when we will know then whether DRB-Hicom will want to continue with our business plan," said Bahar. "I really hope they will but I cannot call it at the moment, it’s still 50:50."Automobile News