18 December 2010 - "Our city car has been confirmed and will be launched in October 2013," Mr. Bahar told the British magazine. "We are doing this together with Proton and another OEM [original equipment manufacturer, or car maker]. We will build three versions: one for the Asian market, one for Europe and a sportier one."
It appears that Aston Martin won't be the only British sports car maker to have a controversial small city car in its range. Lotus chief executive Dany Bahar told Car magazine that the Concept City Car, which was previewed at the recent Paris Motor Show alongside five sports car studies, has been approved for production. The comapny's CEO said the car will be manufactured in cooperation with Lotus parent company Proton and an undisclosed third party.
Dany Bahar has exposed that the Lotus City Car concept has been confirmed and will be launched as a manufacture car in October 2013. He also mentioned that the car would be a project together with Proton and another car manufacturer, which leads us to believe that Proton and Lotus have found a suitable third party to share in the development costs of the vehicle, or at least grant a platform.
According to Bahar, there will be three cars spawned from the project – one for the Asian market (this should be Proton’s), one for the European market (the third party?) and a sportier account (this is the Lotus for sure). So who might this third party be? There has not been any official word yet but according to Autocar India back in November this year, the Nissan V platform might be used to strengthen the EMAS variety of cars.
Since Nissan already has a V platform car – the March, if indeed rumours that this project would use the V platform is true, the European car in question could be some form of next generation Renault Clio perhaps? 2013 would be actually a good time to launch it since the present car launched in 2007 (and facelifted recently) would be owing for replacement by then.
