HETHEL, England — Lotus has tapped into the ranks of former Ferrari executives to fill its new director of design post. Donato Coco, a former director of design and development for Ferrari, will oversee an ambitious long-range product plan for Lotus that is expected to include a new Evora convertible and an all-new Esprit as well as a new Elise and Exige.
Earlier this year, Dany Bahar, another former Ferrari executive, was named CEO of Group Lotus.
Coco is expected to work "on a new strategic business plan which will include the introduction of an all-new range of Lotus cars and expansion of our third-party design work," said Bahar in a statement on Tuesday. Lotus is in expansion mode with its third-party design work, especially in the emerging markets of China and India.
Coco has an impressive résumé that includes having a hand in the design and development of Ferrari's 430 Scuderia coupe and Spider 16M, California, 599XX and 458 Italia. Prior to his stint at Ferrari, Coco was a chief designer at Citroën with responsibility for the Xsara, Picasso, C3, C3 Pluriel, C2, C1, ZX Paris Dakar and Xsara WRC.
"After his non-publicized departure from Ferrari earlier this year, in which Flavio Manzoni was appointed to take his place, Donato Coco has now resurfaced," noted Car Design News in response to the Lotus announcement.
Coco will assume his new post on January 4.
Inside Line says: Lotus continues to cherry-pick former Ferrari execs as it rebuilds its team. It will be interesting to watch the new design influence. — Anita Lienert, Correspondent
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firstclass says:
07:44 PM, 12/16/2009
Donato Coco is a great pick in my opinion. Perhaps adding a unique Italian perspective to Lotus car design will stop future lotuses from looking so much like kit cars. Whenever I see a Lotus Elise at a car show I almost always hear someone say "that's a nice kit-car". The 2009 Lotus Evora helps to break that stigma but doesn't look fully modern.
The only thing that should worry anyone is his involvement in the design of some Citroens, which he didn't really help to break the French tradition of creating ugly cars and looked a lot like American Daewoo's.