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Lotus to layoff a quarter of its workforce

Lotus has issued a press release to day, wherein it indicates that a "need to both reshape its organisation and to reduce costs" may result in the loss of "up to 325" jobs. That's a fairly significant number of layoffs for any company, but considering that Lotus currently employs 1,215 people (per the company's bio in the same release), it could mean a full 25-percent of the automaker's workers could soon be sharpening their resumes.
CEO Jean-Marc Gales says in the statement that Lotus has "worked very hard to avoid the need to make this proposal," but admits that it is now "essential" to the future of the company. The chief indicates that post-restructuring, he expects Lotus to be a "leaner" and "more competitive" organization, one which - and we can all see a little silver lining here - is focused on "producing class-leading sports cars and innovative engineering."
The 325-job number appears to be soft at this point, with the statement indicating that some negotiation about which and how many posts will be cut is yet to come. Further, the company may "redeploy" some employees, and may even recruit new blood for "key roles," all with an eye toward running the strongest possible team going forward. Though, we imagine that the recruitment bit won't fly well for those employees getting the sack.

James Bond Lotus Esprit submarine car headed to auction [w/video]

We've covered many cars from the movies and TV that have made their way to auction (the original Batmobile, good old General Lee and even Bond's iconic Aston Martin DB5), but this one ranks up there among the rarest and coolest. RM Auctions has just announced that the Lotus Esprit submarine car used in the James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me has been added to the docket for its upcoming auction in London, September 8-9.
Of course, there are dozens of Bond cars floating around out there in collections, but none as unique as this Lotus, which ended a chase scene in the movie by taking a long walk off a short pier and transforming itself into a submersible. Since CGI was a meaningless collection of letters back then, the producers of the film actually built a fully functional Lotus Esprit submarine for the shoot. They hired Perry Oceangraphic in Florida to turn one of their six Esprit body shells into a fully functioning submarine, and former US Navy Seal Don Griffin was tapped for piloting duties. RM Auctions claims the Esprit submarine cost over $100,000 to build at the time, which is about $400,000 in today's dollars.
The submarine car comes with a incredible story, too. After filming in the '70s, it was shipped to Long Island, NY where it was kept in a storage unit that was paid in advance for ten years. When the storage contract ended in 1989 and no one claimed the contents, they were sold off in a blind auction to an area couple who had no idea what they were getting. The car has been shown occasionally in the years since, but its value remained purely speculative, until now. To date, the most valuable Bond car we know of is the original Aston Martin DB5 used in Goldfinger and Thunderball that sold for $4.6 million in 2010, but when the gavel falls at RM Auctions' London sale in September, we'll find out if the car nicknamed "Wet Nellie" on set can beat it.

Why all of this year's F1 noses are so ugly [w/video]

If you're a serious fan of Formula One, you already know all about The Great Nosecone Conundrum of 2014. Those given to parsing each year's F1 regulations predicted the strong possibility of the so-called "anteater" noses as far back as early December 2013. Highly suggestive visual evidence first came after Caterham's crash test in early January, with further proof coming as soon as Williams showed a rendering of the FW36 challenger for this year's championship. That car earned a name that wasn't nearly so kind as "anteater."
Casual followers of the sport - or anyone who gets the feed from this site - probably don't know what's happening, except to wonder why the current year's F1 cars are led by appendages that would make Cyrano de Bergerac feel a whole lot better about himself.
The short answer to the question of ugsome F1 noses is "FIA regulations and safety." The reason there are various kinds of ugsome noses is simpler: engineers. The same boffins who have given us advances including carbon fiber monocoques, six-wheeled cars, double diffusers and Drag Reduction Systems are bred to do everything in their power to exploit every possible freedom in the regulations to make the cars they're building go faster - the caveat being that those advances have to work within the overall philosophy of the whole car.