[pothole]

Lotus has basically never been profitable selling Elise based cars. Kind of amazing, but apparently true. It's now in the process of dumping its light weight strategy in favour of a range of significantly heavier, higher specced cars. A total travesty if you ask me, but perhaps commercially necessary?

Spyder hasn't been that huge a commercial success this side of the pond. For a long while after production ended, there were a bunch of them knocking around UK dealers being offered below list.

How good the Cayman R is, is irrelevant to what the market demands. I don't think the Cayman R was a huge success, either. Brilliant car, but most people with the necessary funds aren't full-on enthusiasts.

As I keep saying, my preference is for light weight, simple sports cars with manual boxes, minimal driver aids, natural aspiration etc. But I'm not remotely convinced there's a large consumer demand for light weight sports cars and that's why so few are made.

I know very clearly what I like, but I'll give Porsche credit for knowing better what the market wants.