Dany Bahar - Anders bekeken
24 Mei, 2011
Dany Bahar is beaming like a small boy who has just run into Father Christmas: “In my eyes,” he says, “Lotus has always been an electrifying brand. Sharon Stone in ‘Basic Instict’, Richard Gere in ‘Pretty Woman’ – both in an Esprit. That was my dream car!” Bahar no longer needs to dream. He himself has become the maker of his dream car. A scale model of the new Esprit, together with models of a new Eterne, a new Elise, a new Elite and a new Elan as well as a fresh-as-a-daisy electric city car are parked on the shelves of the glass palace that is his office. The new cars aren’t quite ready for production yet. It took less than a year from scratch, however, for the plans to be advanced enough for the new models to be presented at the Paris motor show. Public and press were united in a rare degree of astonishment. They had long since ceased to expect fireworks of this kind from Lotus.
Thanks to an illustrious connection with motor sport, thanks to Graham Hill and Jim Clark, Lotus, alongside The Beatles, George Best and Twiggy, came to embody the spirit of the Swinging Sixties. Lotus founder Colin Chapman was touched by genius, the quintessential modern self-made man. Between 1963 and 1978, the trophy for the Formula 1 world constructor’s championship spent a full seven years in the sleepy Norfolk village of Hethel where Lotus has been based since the year of “Eleanor Rigby” and “Good Vibrations”. Small wonder that even James Bond needed an Esprit for some of his adventures. Sadly, the next high point in the history of Lotus, the one with Sharon Stone and Richard Gere, proved to be the last hurrah – so far. Whilst the competition continued to apply the latest marketing tools to their campaigns, Lotus, after the death of Colin Chapman in 1982, lost the vision and the means to keep up. Since 1996, Lotus belongs to the state-owned Malaysian car manufacturer Proton. Today, the company is still with us only because Proton patiently plugged the red holes that opened up year after year in its accounts. As time wore on, the owners became aware of what the problem was. A team of first-rate engineers producing beautiful cars was no longer enough. What was needed today was a marketing brain that would once more make the vision of brand Lotus irresistible to the public.
Dany Bahar was born in 1972 in Istanbul to a Slovenian father and a Turkish mother. Soon, the family moved to Switzerland, to Silvaplana in the Engadin region. Dany was a sharp little boy. As his father worked in a hotel, he was constantly amongst people, honing his talent as a clever communicator. His first car – a blue Renault 5 – was parked in the garage long before he passed the driving test. When Dany wanted to take a ride he had to convince one of his pals to be his private chauffeur.
Dany Bahar was born in 1972 in Istanbul to a Slovenian father and a Turkish mother. Soon, the family moved to Switzerland, to Silvaplana in the Engadin region. Dany was a sharp little boy. As his father worked in a hotel, he was constantly amongst people, honing his talent as a clever communicator. His first car – a blue Renault 5 – was parked in the garage long before he passed the driving test. When Dany wanted to take a ride he had to convince one of his pals to be his private chauffeur.
"If you don’t risk anything, you won’t achieve anything at all"
—Dany Bahar
After working as a sales assistant, Bahar completed a business apprenticeship with a Bachelor and later a Masters degree. In his spare time he became involved in sports sponsoring. His first major coup was to convince Benetton to contribute CHF 600,000 – a massive sum in those days – for an inline-skating event. He moved to Italy to act as the assistant of a politician, a prime mover in the inline-skating business. Having been introduced to Fritz Kaiser, once an Olympic judo star, Bahar relocated to Liechtenstein to work in Kaiser’s wealth management company. In 2002, Bahar married Annett, the daughter of a prominent headhunter, Björn Johansson. One of Fritz Kaiser’s clients is Dietrich Mateschitz. Mateschitz had introduced the Far Eastern energy drink craze to Europe, calling his power drink Red Bull. In autumn 2003 he embarked on a massive expansion plan and called for Bahar to be his marketing chief. At the start of Bahar’s stint, Red Bull’s yearly turnover stood at just below one billion euro. At the end, it had more than doubled.
Bahar left Red Bull because he had landed the dream job. At Ferrari, his task was to capture a more youthful clientele for a brand that had rested on its laurels for too long. Life was good. One son had just started in school, a move into a beautiful new house was imminent. Then, the 2008 Paris motor show and, out of the blue, the approach from Proton. Would he be interested in taking over Lotus? At first, says Bahar, he turned down the offer. Then he changed his mind. “I said: ‘We have to do this. An opportunity like this will never come again.’
Bahar left Red Bull because he had landed the dream job. At Ferrari, his task was to capture a more youthful clientele for a brand that had rested on its laurels for too long. Life was good. One son had just started in school, a move into a beautiful new house was imminent. Then, the 2008 Paris motor show and, out of the blue, the approach from Proton. Would he be interested in taking over Lotus? At first, says Bahar, he turned down the offer. Then he changed his mind. “I said: ‘We have to do this. An opportunity like this will never come again.’
Never has a sense of history been more important than it is in today’s age of instant communication. History suggests continuity and security. It gives off a glow of familiarity, spreads warmth. “If Lotus didn’t have this whole amazing history, I wouldn’t have come here,” says Bahar. First, he ordered 300 copies of antiquarian automobile magazines. He wanted to form a mental picture of the brand’s presence during the very best of times. Bahar personally spoke to nearly 500 automobile fans about the image they associated with Lotus. Over and over the response was the same. Yes, the brand was well known. But few were able to associate it with any recent achievements. Based on these insights, Bahar set about to formulate his plans for a revived Lotus. First and foremost, he saw the need to reconnect with the history of the car. “In all the classic car tests,” he points out, “the Lotus Esprit was always compared with the Ferrari 328, with a Porsche and with an Aston Martin. These are the sort of cars we need to be compared to again.”
Bahar’s next task was to put together a team to turn his -vision into reality. His wish list contained 24 names. 23 of these are with him today. Men like Donato Coco who devised the 458 for Ferrari. Wolf Zimmermann, 17 years with AMG, responsible for the Mercedes SLS. Erik Ruge who, for Porsche, built the Cayenne factory in Leipzig. As Bahar rightly points out: “These are big boys. Heavyweights.” The fact that they all followed his call only helped to strengthen Bahar’s belief that his was a -realistic vision and that an opportunity to make history awaited them: “With a big manufacturer like Mercedes or Porsche, you can design a car from beginning to end – as soon as you’re done, the next designer will design the next car. Nobody outside the inner circle of car manufacturing will recognize your name. But if you come to join us here in Norfolk, and if we achieve the turn-around with this company, you can one day look back with pride and say: ‘I have built this!’ That’s what has been my own great spur to come here.”
"Flexibility is another important attribute. In the last ten years I have worked in four different countries. The conditions and circumstances were different in each. You have to remain open-minded to be able to adapt your methods"Bahar’s next task was to put together a team to turn his -vision into reality. His wish list contained 24 names. 23 of these are with him today. Men like Donato Coco who devised the 458 for Ferrari. Wolf Zimmermann, 17 years with AMG, responsible for the Mercedes SLS. Erik Ruge who, for Porsche, built the Cayenne factory in Leipzig. As Bahar rightly points out: “These are big boys. Heavyweights.” The fact that they all followed his call only helped to strengthen Bahar’s belief that his was a -realistic vision and that an opportunity to make history awaited them: “With a big manufacturer like Mercedes or Porsche, you can design a car from beginning to end – as soon as you’re done, the next designer will design the next car. Nobody outside the inner circle of car manufacturing will recognize your name. But if you come to join us here in Norfolk, and if we achieve the turn-around with this company, you can one day look back with pride and say: ‘I have built this!’ That’s what has been my own great spur to come here.”
—Dany Bahar
If everything goes well, the reborn Lotus will return to the sports car elite with a second big bang. This will take place in October 2012 when the tigerish Elan will be the first of the new models to roll out of the Hethel works. 450 PS, 0 to 100 km/h in 3.5 seconds. Bahar is convinced that this, the most versatile sports car in his program, will be able to take on a Porsche 911 or an Aston Martin V8. One year later, the Esprit will throw down the gauntlet to the Ferrari 458. Another twelve months later, it will be the turn of the Elite to seduce fans of the Ferrari California. In 2015, the picture will be completed with the Elise as well as an entirely new Lotus experience, a car with four doors named Eterne. Additionally, the plans for an electric city car are well advanced. Last but not least, there is the T125, a Formula 1-style racing car for the rich enthusiast, super easy to run, service and maintain. Costing GBP 600,000, the T125 was launched last August at Pebble Beach. Seventeen orders arrived within four weeks. Bahar: “Our performance bench mark for each model is the top mark in its class. At the same time, our prices will be 30 to 40 percent cheaper.”
Dany Bahar’s dream of a new leaf in the life of Lotus has not quite become a reality yet. Much of it still only exists on a drawing board. The intrepid dreamer is under no illusions: “There are a hundred possible killers for this project,” he says. “If we don’t make it, well, we don’t make it. At least, we have risked something, and we have taken on this risk with a passion. If you don’t risk anything, you won’t achieve anything at all.”
It is not just the price that is lower with a Lotus. A Lotus also weighs considerably less than other, similar cars. Lightness of build has traditionally been a pillar of Lotus’s design credo. Bahar: “Each car we have presented will be at least 150 kg lighter than the nearest competitor. As a result, it will be lower in its fuel consumption. Therefore, the CO2 emissions will be 20 to 30 percent lower, too.” It is the perfect meeting point between Lotus tradition and today’s ecology-conscious Zeitgeist.
Bron : http://www.iwc.com/en-us/experiences/dany-bahar/Dany Bahar’s dream of a new leaf in the life of Lotus has not quite become a reality yet. Much of it still only exists on a drawing board. The intrepid dreamer is under no illusions: “There are a hundred possible killers for this project,” he says. “If we don’t make it, well, we don’t make it. At least, we have risked something, and we have taken on this risk with a passion. If you don’t risk anything, you won’t achieve anything at all.”
It is not just the price that is lower with a Lotus. A Lotus also weighs considerably less than other, similar cars. Lightness of build has traditionally been a pillar of Lotus’s design credo. Bahar: “Each car we have presented will be at least 150 kg lighter than the nearest competitor. As a result, it will be lower in its fuel consumption. Therefore, the CO2 emissions will be 20 to 30 percent lower, too.” It is the perfect meeting point between Lotus tradition and today’s ecology-conscious Zeitgeist.
Met dank aan Denis (DVR) voor de tip.
