Lotus is embroiled in a naming row with another business using the Lotus name.
Group Lotus is the ‘real’ Lotus but another enterprising lot are using the Lotus brand, causing confusion for publics presented with two Lotus positionings.
Lotus v Lotus F1? Nope. This is Lotus v Lotus China – and remarkably, it’s even more confusing than the Grand Prix argument meandering through the UK courts behind closed doors.
In a nutshell, things are thus: Youngman, a leading 1970s concept disco group leading Chinese bus manufacturer (with 70% of the bus market), is using the Lotus name to promote its Europestar range of cars. Launched in 2008, the Europestar range is Youngman’s first entry into the passenger car market.
They are rebadged Protons, which were initially shipped from Malaysia to China in CKD form, but from 2009 have been produced in one of two huge new passenger car factories built by Youngman (the Jinhua and Hangzhou plats have a capacity of 450,000 cars a year).
The first car to go on sale was the Europestar RCR, aka Proton Gen-2. It’s a decent effort. Proton’s actually taking content from China back into Malaysia, too: the Chinese are, apparently, good at high-quality interiors, which are now being shipped into Malaysia.
The Lotus link? Lotus Engineering did the engineering, both engineering the Gen-2 itself and then re-engineering it for the Chinese market. They thus carry an ‘Engineered by Lotus’ badge on the back (for which Lotus receives a $50 licence fee per car).
That’s Lotus engineering, note. Not Lotus design. But still with ‘Lotus’ in the name. Appealing…
Canny old Youngman recognised this appeal. So, for several years, has been increasingly marketing the cars not as Europestars, but as Europestar Lotus – and, latterly, forgetting the Europestar bit entirely. It even exhibiting the new Lotus family car at the Shanghai Motor Show next to a Lotus sportscar.
Yup, a new Lotus family car: the Lotus L5 GT. A facelifted Proton.
Crafty. Canny. Smart. Cheeky. Not quite right. And another naming row Lotus has to resolve. Made all the more paramount now that Group Lotus (the parent of Lotus Engineering) has launched the Lotus sportscar range in China. Here is (believe it or not) where it starts to get even more confusing.
Youngman, see, has already claimed the direct translation word of Lotus in China: Lianhua. Real Lotus, then, has had to use Lutesi, the phonetic translation.
Lotus has the badge, though. To underline it’s the real thing – and to separate it from the Youngman Lotus – the famous yellow and green roundel now has ‘NYO’ emblazoned on it. ‘New’.
Why it didn’t choose ‘original’ or ‘real’ or something else is lost on me, given how it’s not ‘new’ but the only genuine Lotus of the two. Make that doubly odd: Youngman doesn’t use the Lotus rounden, making the ‘NYO’ tag a little unnecessary.
At least it’s a salvo though, as the two manufacturers battle on in this curious and extremely puzzling trademark dispute.
Or maybe not. At the launch of Lotus China, the firm’s PR man Yang Cheng told adsads that there is no issue with Youngman using Lotus.
Two plus two time: are there bigger plans afoot here? Colin Chapman was always one for opportunism: could there be one emerging for an opening into the world’s largest market? Could this puzzling situation become even more intriguing?
Well, yes. Don’t forget, Youngman, in association with Chinese dealer giant Pang Da, is bidding to pair up with Saab…
UPDATE
Youngman Lotus, in alliance with car distributor Pang Da, now has an equity stake in Saab. This was confirmed on June 4 – and there are further plans to form a strategic alliance and ‘New Product Joint Venture’.
This will mean three new cars will be developed – Saab 9-1 (reportedly to based on the current MINI platform, when BMW replaces it next year), Saab 9-6 and Saab 9-7. The latter two will be China and US-focused: although Saab’s to do all the development, what’s the betting Youngman won’t get involved in some way?
And so now we have a link between Saab, Youngman, Proton and Lotus. Intriguing? You bet – and that’s before these three work on other planned alliances for Chinese sales and global growth…
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