Tuesday 23 January 2018

Publicity stunt of the day

From The Daily Mail:

The boss of Lotus sports cars has been banned from driving after he was caught speeding at 102mph.

Jean-Marc Gales, 54, was handed a 30-day ban after he was clocked breaking the 70mph limit as he test drove one of the company's new cars on the busy A11. The Luxembourg-born businessman avoided more points being added to the eight he already has on his licence because it is 'vital' that he test drives new cars, his lawyer told magistrates.


If the aerodynamics of their cars are as slippery as the boss' excuses..!

One thought springs to mind... many car models don't have proper names, just a random collection of letters and digits, would it not have been cooler if Lotus had a model "A11" (for example), and their boss just bombed up and down the A11 at ever increasing speed until he got caught?

Then the next model could be be the "A14" (let's skip the A12 and A13), and they get an employee to repeat the stunt on the A14 etc (assuming that these letter/digit combinations haven't already been taken).

10 comments:

Lola said...

Well, the Lotus XI was one of the Marques most successful designs...
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/37/1957_Lotus_XI_le_mans_classic_2008.jpg

Mark Wadsworth said...

L, Vince Cable was a racing driver?

Lola said...

It's also a thin excuse as the Lotus Hethel factory has a renowned test track ,and Snetterton Circuit is not far away.

mombers said...

"The Luxembourg-born businessman avoided more points being added to the eight he already has on his licence because it is 'vital' that he test drives new cars, his lawyer told magistrates."
Um, I'm pretty sure that you can still drive on private property (i.e. a test track) with a suspended licence. Isn't that where test drives should be done anyway? What a knob

Lola said...

MW. Eh?

Mark Wadsworth said...

L, M, it's the lousiest excuse of all time, and clearly he is a knob.

Still a good publicity stunt though, get a few free column inches.

James Higham said...

He was just bored with that test track. Perfectly understandable.

Mark Wadsworth said...

L, look closely at the driver of the Lotus XI in the photo you linked to.

Lola said...

Mw. Ah ha.

benj said...


Should have said that being a continental, got mixed up with mph and kph.

Easily done.