How Lotus Engineers Help Changed The Direction Of Our Business

It’s funny how things can come full circle.

 

There are moments in business, and in life, that quietly change your direction forever. People who help shape your thinking, open your eyes to a new perspective, or simply take the time to share their experience. At the time you often do not realise how important those moments are, but years later you look back and understand just how much they changed your path. So when you get the opportunity to say thank you again, it means a great deal.

 

This is Matt Becker, one of the world’s leading chassis engineers. Today he is Vehicle Engineering Director at Jaguar Land Rover, previously CEO of Aston Martin, and before that part of the legendary chassis development team at Lotus. That is where we first met.

 

Matt, along with his colleagues Martyn Anderson and Gavin Kershaw, played a hugely important part in changing the direction of our business and the way we understood vehicle dynamics.

Back in 2003 we were beginning to gain recognition with our Subaru Impreza Spec C. I was invited to the Autocar Drivers Car Of The Year test at Rockingham, where journalists spent two days evaluating some of the best performance cars available at the time. During the event I spent a lot of time speaking and driving with Martyn Anderson, Lotus’ Chief Chassis Engineer. The Spec C made the final group of cars and, as we left, Martyn casually said, “If you ever need anything, give me a call.”

A few months later our modified Spec C won the first round of Evo Magazine’s Car of the Year testing in Scotland, which was a huge moment for us. We were then invited to Italy to compete against some incredible machinery, including the newly released Ferrari 360 Challenge Stradale and Porsche 996 GT3.

 

The Subaru performed brilliantly, but one criticism remained. Over difficult surfaces the chassis struggled. At the time our suspension upgrades mainly consisted of lowering springs and stiffer anti roll bars, simple modifications without a huge amount of technical understanding behind them.

 

It became obvious that if we wanted to improve, we needed to understand why the car behaved the way it did.

 

So I picked up the phone to Martyn at Lotus.

 

Considering the scale of projects Lotus was involved with at the time, working with some of the world’s largest manufacturers (including a certain Nissan), you would have expected a polite refusal. Instead, they invited me to Hethel.

 

I drove the Spec C to the famous Lotus test track and spent the day with Matt and Gavin. We drove the car, discussed its behaviour in detail, and for the first time I properly understood how the very best chassis engineers analyse a vehicle. They explained what the car was doing, why it was happening, and how it could be improved.

 

It completely changed the way I thought about suspension and ride quality.

 

Before I left they asked me to send the dampers and springs to them so they could run them on the chassis dyno. The data confirmed exactly what they had explained during the test day and the findings were fed back to our new suspension supplier. 

 

The cost for all of this time and knowledge?  “Nothing, we’re happy to help.”

I remember sending them a thank you card and some HMV vouchers, which definitely shows how long ago this was.

Our next Subaru special was our Type-25 complete with our newly developed adjustable suspension, this car would finish 2nd (behind a Noble) the following year at next Autocar event, “Britain’s Best Driver’s Car”  and continue to evolve and perform well at Evo’s Car Of The Year (ECOTY) events.

Over the years I saw Matt and Gavin a few more times, usually dominating the annual Autocar drift competitions, but the lessons they taught me during that time at Hethel stayed with me. Even now, I cannot drive a car without thinking about its primary ride, low or high speed damping.

 

Those lessons helped shape the chassis philosophy we still use today.

 

Since then we have gone on to develop successful suspension packages for BMW M cars, Nissan GT-Rs, and even the Lotus Emira. Much of that understanding developed from the time spent with the experts at Lotus.

Fast forward 23 years and I received a WhatsApp message from Matt asking if we could help improve the ride and chassis balance of his personal Porsche GT3.

 

It was one of those moments that really makes you stop and reflect. It was a privilege to show Matt around our work and explain how we had grown over the years.  A genuinely proud moment for everyone here and a reminder of how important good people can be in this industry.

 

And the feedback afterward we worked on Matt’s GT3?

 

“Car is so much more relaxed, rounded and joyful.”

 

Sometimes things really do come full circle.

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