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Recently we have heard that Malaysian carmaker Proton has been sold to DRB Hicom. As a result of the sale there was talk that the new owners may divest itself of performance car manufacturer Lotus, which is owned by Proton. However, during a recent interview Lotus CEO Dany Bahar has told Autocar magazine that he has explained Lotus' five-year plan to DRB Hicom and he basically has been given the green light to carry on with the programme that he has pushed for.

The programme is currently in its second year and Mr Bahar had pointed out that there is a newly designed gearbox is in the midst of dyno testing while the new in-house V8 engine is up and running. He also stated that Lotus has scheduled to run the supercar prototypes by May of this year (this is probably the prototype for the upcoming Lotus Esprit). What this basically means is that Proton has already pumped in a large wad of cash into Lotus and in Mr Bahar's words,