Paul Newsome of Lotus Engineering

To anyone with even a passing interest in the UK automotive industry, Lotus is something of a national icon; a niche manufacturer of affordable supercars that wears its history — it was formed by Colin Chapman behind a North London pub in 1952 — proudly on its sleeve. But there is much more than meets the eye to the Norfolk-based carmaker.

Through its consultancy arm, Lotus Engineering, the group has had a profound and largely unnoticed impact on the wider automotive industry. An estimated 25 per cent of all cars on Europe’s roads now have something developed by Lotus beneath the bonnet and, against the odds, the division — which accounts for around half of the group’s activity — has actually grown over the past few years. Last year, against a backdrop of significant decline elsewhere in the industry, sales rose by 23 per cent.

Much of this growth has occurred under the watchful eye of Lotus Engineering’s affable managing director, Paul Newsome. ‘When I joined,’ he told The Engineer, ‘the vast majority of the work we were doing was for our shareholder [Lotus is owned by Malaysian automotive group Proton] or for our own products. Over the last three years we’ve built up our third-party business to the point now where 70 per cent of the work we do is for outside customers.’ In difficult times, it’s quite an achievement, but Newsome plays down any suggestion that he’s performed a minor miracle. Instead, he puts the scale and speed of the recent growth largely down to the fact that Lotus was growing the third-party work from a low start point. ‘We had evolved into a business that primarily did work for its shareholder and its own products, the opportunity — whether it was in a market that was declining or not — was always very, very good.’