2008 Lotus Exige S 240 Coupe 2-door 1.8l on 2040-cars

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New Lotus owners ditch ambitious five-year plan

This didn't take long. The new overlords at Lotus have reportedly scrapped the company's five-year plan. DRB-Hicom ditched the turnaround strategy, penned by ousted CEO Danny Bahar, because it believes the market viewed the plan as overly ambitious.
The new product plan will slim the number of new model lines from five to three, and Lotus will likely slash the number planned consultants in favor of relying more heavily on in-house talent. According to The Star, the move should help expedite product development and save cash at the same time.
Even so, nothing is written in stone as of yet. DRB-Hicom says the new plan will take up to a year to finalize. The company has dumped around $242 million into Lotus so far this year, and the struggling automaker may require another $121 million by 2013. Lotus all but stopped production earlier this year during a loan freeze, but the lights came back on in April. The company now produces around 44 vehicles per week.

Why all of this year's F1 noses are so ugly [w/video]

If you're a serious fan of Formula One, you already know all about The Great Nosecone Conundrum of 2014. Those given to parsing each year's F1 regulations predicted the strong possibility of the so-called "anteater" noses as far back as early December 2013. Highly suggestive visual evidence first came after Caterham's crash test in early January, with further proof coming as soon as Williams showed a rendering of the FW36 challenger for this year's championship. That car earned a name that wasn't nearly so kind as "anteater."
Casual followers of the sport - or anyone who gets the feed from this site - probably don't know what's happening, except to wonder why the current year's F1 cars are led by appendages that would make Cyrano de Bergerac feel a whole lot better about himself.
The short answer to the question of ugsome F1 noses is "FIA regulations and safety." The reason there are various kinds of ugsome noses is simpler: engineers. The same boffins who have given us advances including carbon fiber monocoques, six-wheeled cars, double diffusers and Drag Reduction Systems are bred to do everything in their power to exploit every possible freedom in the regulations to make the cars they're building go faster - the caveat being that those advances have to work within the overall philosophy of the whole car.

Kimi Raikkonen moving to Ferrari?

Kimi Raikkonen, easily one of our favorite current drivers in Formula 1, may be making a move from Lotus to Ferrari, according to a Finnish tabloid called Ilta-Sanomat. Raikkonen, who won the driver's championship in 2007 with the Italian brand, is in high demand and is also rumored to have options on the table from Red Bull and his current team.
Of course, a move by Kimi to Ferrari means at least one of the Maranello-based outfit would need to find another ride. Driving ace Fernando Alonso has publicly voiced his displeasure with the Ferrari chassis, and rumors have the Spaniard considering a move to Red Bull to replace Mark Webber. Buckle up, folks, this Silly Season is shaping up to be bumpy...