What should Lotus do next?

Chinese car giant Geely is reportedly considering investing £1.5bn into reviving one of the car world’s most cherished brands: Lotus.

A Bloomberg report states the investment by Geely – which bought Lotus in May last year, and Volvo back in 2010 – will be used to expand the sports car company's Hethel plant and more.

Lotus has recently been stabilised and turned into a profitable company for the first time in its history, under former CEO Jean-Marc Gales. He left the company a couple of months back.

The man who replaced Gales as boss of Lotus is Feng Qingfeng, vice president and chief technical officer of Geely Auto Group. At the time of his appointment, he said: “With Geely’s global synergies and total support I am confident that Lotus has an exciting opportunity to achieve its full potential as a luxury sports brand, based around its engineering legacy and its future product pipeline.”

Ah yes, future product pipeline. While Gales was still boss, he did confirm to Top Gear that a Lotus SUV and indeed all-new Elise were on the cards, the latter arriving in 2020. However, nothing’s yet been confirmed by the new management.

A Geely spokesperson wouldn’t confirm the recent investment figure to us, but insisted that the company “is committed to Lotus’s great history”, and that it will “take care that this wonderful brand also has a bright future”.

So, Lotus is in safe hands, but what should it do next? Continue apace with an SUV? Bring out a mid-engined, Ferrari 488 rival? Or go further upmarket into the 'luxury' space and fire out a fully-fledged hypercar?

Have your say, below.