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Writer's pictureJ Anderson

The Lotus Hatchback No-one Knows About

Lotus are known for their race cars. They have been around the block when it comes to engine building, and handling. The cars they produce in the commercial market are in a specific niche, race cars for the road. The Exige, Elise, Elan, all of them are low, coupe, 2-door sports cars. None are hatchbacks, well thats what you think.



A hatchback Lotus? Yeahhh, well sort of..........



Okay, I am a slight fraud, it's not a Lotus, it's actually a Proton. Most of you have probably never heard of Proton, it is a car company based in Malaysia. Proton was started in 1983 as a manufacturer of rebadged Mitsubishi's. Proton made there first car in the year 2000, since then they have made many a car that no one has heard of, including the Proton Satria. A varient of the Satria, the Satria GTI is the Lotus hatchback that I am talking about. It looks like the standard model (I know you don't know what that looks like but google it, I am not your mother), but it has been driven through Halfords. It uses a 1.8L engine, instead of the standard 1.5L, which Lotus have played with (no they didn't). The only thing Lotus played with was the handling, which to be fair is not a bad thing considering their heritage, but they didn't exactly change a lot on it. It seems that it was more of a brand thing with Proton, they contacted Lotus purely to display the Lotus badge on the car. Lotus probably made quite a healthy amount of money off of the deal so I respect the business decision from both ends.

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