What kind of car is Lotus?

Brand name: Lotus

Brand category: automobiles and accessories >> automobiles

Company name: Lianhua Automobile Company

Company address: American Lotus Motor Company, 2236 Northmont Parkway, Deluce, Georgia, 30096.

Jane: Lotus Motor Company is a famous sports car manufacturer in the world. Founded in 195 1, it now belongs to Proton Malaysia Proton Group. Headquartered in Norich, England, the company has 500 employees and an annual output of about 600 cars. Lianhua Automobile Company has a low center of gravity, a good streamlined shape and a drag coefficient of about 0.3. The engine power is high, the lowest is 160 horsepower, and the speed is as high as 300 km/h. Lotus is a very strong competitor in the world automobile field and has won the world championship for many times. 1963- 1978 lotus has won the world's best passenger car award for seven times. 199 1 year, Lotus Yilan Automobile won the World Automobile Best Design Award. Lianhua Automobile Company is one of the earliest manufacturers to use high-strength plastic body on automobiles. The molding process and vacuum-assisted resin injection process adopted by them can form the car body into two parts, the upper part and the lower part, and finally combine them into one, which not only has high production efficiency, but also greatly enhances the strength of the car body, which is unique in the world. The main products of Lotus Motor Company are "Elf", "Yilan" and "Zhuo Yue" brand sports cars. In addition to the English word Lotus, the company's logo also has a pattern consisting of the first four letters (ACBC) of the founder's name.

Lotus history

Lotus brand is the masterpiece of British gentleman Colin Chapman. Chapman is a typical English gentleman. His moustache is always neatly trimmed. Such a gentleman is described in many movies, but it is rare in Britain today. In the decades after the war, the name of the British engineer had a great influence on the world automobile movement. Since 1958, the Lotus Team under his command has won the championship of F 1 race for seven times, creating a number of excellent models that go down in history. Driven by his passion for automobile sports, Chapman made his favorite racing car from scratch, and then made brilliant achievements in both automobile manufacturing and racing. This is the most beautiful story in the world automobile history.

Started at 1947. Colin Chapman is a young student who is obsessed with racing. 19 was still studying engineering at the University of London, and he modified a crude Austin No.7 racing car himself. This is not so much a racing car as a stunt car. Because of the post-war fashion, Britain competed in amateur racing in muddy Woods. Chapman won the championship by building his own racing car, so that he sold many cars by selling parts. The design is successful, of course, we should give it a name. Chapman had a whim and called it "Lotus". As for why it is called Lotus, Chapman always refuses to give details.

Young Chapman's spare time, one or two tricks of lotus racing, decided his life from now on. He spent his spare time and long nights designing his favorite cars, registered the Lotus brand and became a school of his own. Among them, MkIII and MkIV have limited power, but the shape design is very in line with the requirements of racing cars, so they have made great achievements. Chapman, a successful young man, founded Lotus Engineering Company in June 1 952+1October1,and began to manufacture cars of this brand, and gradually formed industrial production. Lotus brand was unable to design and produce engines by itself at the beginning, so it concentrated all its energy on body design and adhered to a principle, that is, to reduce the weight of the body as much as possible and maximize the limited power. It is precisely because of this concept that MkVI published in 1952 adopts a tubular frame with a honeycomb structure. This technology has been widely used in aircraft manufacturing, but it is the first time to use it in automobiles. The Ford engine used in this racing car is only 40 HP (29 kW), the brakes are old-fashioned, and the gearbox has only three speed ratios. However, because its body is only 400 kilograms, it has excellent grip on the ground, so it left many high-powered opponents behind in the car race.

Lotus Automobile Factory gradually developed small batch production, but did not give up the competition. The two services were not formally separated until 1959. 1955 MkVI, which was discontinued, was later renamed Lotus VII.

Lotus VII also retained the fender of the motorcycle and a body without doors. But the style is more modern, and the body structure still adopts a variety of tubular frames, and the aluminum plate of the body is directly fixed on the frame. The front wheel suspension is triangular cantilever type with anti-swing bar. The rear wheels only use hard axles. The Lotus Seven model is still partially sold, but because of its low price, it has quickly become an ideal racing car for many small races. It is a fine tradition in Britain for racing enthusiasts to organize this mini-car race on Sunday. Lianqi has been a rapid success since the publication of 1957. Strangely, Chapman didn't like this model, and decided to stop production after 10 years, which disappointed the fans. Fortunately, a car dealer in London reached an agreement with Chapman at 1967, and bought all the molds and tools of the car to continue manufacturing. Now it has a history of 43 years and is still in production.

Lotus brand gradually became famous in the car world. It took part in the F 1 race for the first time in 1958, and became famous in one fell swoop, especially the MkVIII, MkIX and MkX racing cars, which shined brilliantly in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, France. But Chapman's proudest achievement is F 1. The integrated single-seat racing car he designed is of epoch-making significance, which has dominated the race for 20 years.

Chapman constantly develops unique sports cars and accumulates trophies on the field. 1957 The elite imported is a beautiful sports car. The car body is made of plastic and divided into three parts, which are glued together like sandwiches. Although the car is shocking, the sales performance is not good. Because although the grip was excellent and the driving was intoxicating, the reliability was poor, so the sales volume was not much, which almost closed the Lotus Car Factory. Chapman learned from it and continued to work hard. In 1962, he launched the Elen sports car. The car is extremely strong, the body adopts beam-column skeleton, and the road performance is surprisingly good. Starting from 1965, the 2+2 roadster was launched to continuously consolidate its position.

With the development of performance, Lianhua Automobile Factory launched a European ultra-modern convertible at 1966. But until now, Lotus Automobile Factory is still using other brands of engines. Chapman has been worried about this for a long time. When 1974 produced its own 100% elite model, the situation changed a lot. The car is spacious and comfortable with a 2-liter four-cylinder engine and four seats. This is a real luxury sports car. This has created a brand of modern people, but also let the original customers of Lotus sports car very disappointed. Because the previous Lotus car was always as simple and light as possible, only considering the driver. After taking a different approach, Lotus Car Factory launched another Esprit on 1975. This car is more powerful and luxurious, and it was already the rival of Porsche and Ferrari in stubborness at that time. In the 1980s, this Lotus sports car continued to upgrade according to Chapman's wishes, with a power of 268 HP (197 kW) and a top speed of over 260 km/h. ..

At the same time, the Lotus brand constantly participates in various competitions. Chapman converted a Ford Cortina into a brand-new racing car as early as 1960s, and won many trophies. Of course, the most brilliant performance of Lotus Team is still in F 1. 1970, Chapman introduced Model 72 single-seater racing car. This extraordinary racing car has set a new trend. Its design concept is to move all the weight to the rear of the car to improve the dynamic performance. To this end, the rear wheel of the car is surprisingly large and the front wheel is surprisingly small. In addition, the body with sharp corners was unprecedented at that time. This Type 72 racing car won 20 races and 3 brand awards in five seasons. Chapman then introduced the JohnPlayerSpecialLotus79 racing car. This new racing car 1978 has significantly improved the driving system. As a result, it beat all its competitors. So that opponents have followed suit. The Chapman team won the brand award for this car.