Template talk:Lotus

Template reformatted
Since this template is primarily serving as a manufacturer summary for each of the related Lotus Cars articles, I've reformatted it to better match the standard road car timeline for other automobile manufacturers. Matthewmichaelagee (talk) 22:06, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

This is my first major edit, so I may be overlooking minor formatting details. Could someone troubleshoot why wordwrap is cutting short the Related Cars section? Thanks! Matthewmichaelagee (talk) 22:11, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Which cars to list in the "Race Cars" section
I gather that the intention here is to only list cars for which a corresponding article already exists (hence my edits yesterday). Contrast this with template:Brabham and template:Williams, which list all the cars, regardless of whether or not there is a matching article. DH85868993 12:57, 1 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Decided to add all the F1 and Indy cars, for consistency with other constructor templates, and to minimise the need for change in the future. - DH85868993 13:16, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

There's a lot of grey area between Lotus Race Cars and Road Cars. I've broken out Sports Racers from the Race Cars list to better reflect the ambiguity of their roadgoing status; nearly all were also available as street-legal models in certain markets. Track variants of other Road Cars (e.g. Europa Type 47, Motorsport Elise) remain un-broken-out from their parent models, for clarity. Matthewmichaelagee (talk) 22:06, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Lotus T127
Should the Lotus T127 be included in this template?-- Midgrid  (talk)  19:13, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes. WP:BOLD -- intgr [talk] 23:17, 12 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I would say that neither the Lotus T127 nor the T128 should be included. The modern Lotus Racing team has no physical connections to either the historic Team Lotus or Lotus Cars, but raced under the name in 2010 under a license agreement from the owner of Lotus Cars, and in 2011 by buying the rights to the Team Lotus name from David Hunt.  Until the issues are sorted out between the two outfits, all three cars (being the T127, T128, and the Lotus Renault GP R31) should collectively be either included or excluded. Sbursi (talk) 22:34, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Classic Team Lotus NavBox
Shoulnt classic team lotus have its own navbox it would be easyer to find their cars. 19:03 me12356 29 april 2012 —Preceding undated comment added 18:04, 29 April 2012 (UTC).
 * Just to make sure I understand your question correctly: By "Classic Team Lotus", do you mean Team Lotus or this organisation? DH85868993 (talk) 02:44, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

The Colin Chapman Team Lotus Navbox
What i meant was the formula one team runned by colin chapman until 1982 and pulled out of formula one in 1994 it should have a navbox. 19:03 me12356 30 april 2012 —Preceding undated comment added 09:35, 30 April 2012 (UTC).
 * OK. I have advertised this discussion at WP:F1, in the interests of attracting a wider audience. DH85868993 (talk) 12:01, 30 April 2012 (UTC)


 * That's actually a decent idea. It's one of the only major teams without it's own template, and there's no need to include the race cars in with the Lotus road cars. QueenCake (talk) 19:40, 1 May 2012 (UTC)


 * For the record: the template was created - see Team Lotus. DH85868993 (talk) 03:19, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

Lotus Racing Cars
Really? I dont understand why the 2 cars built by Lotus Racing (Team Lotus (2010-11) are in the Navbox as they arnt cars built under any connection? of Group Lotus? Daniels Renault Sport (talk) 11:07, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
 * The T127 should be as Lotus Racing used the name by permission of Group Lotus, but the "Team Lotus" T128 should go. — Jon C.  ॐ  11:13, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I dont think they both should be in it, as both chassis are under Caterham Group ownership and not Group Lotus.

Daniels Renault Sport (talk) 16:40, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
 * It's reasonable to include all cars called Lotus in the same template. These are navigational templates made to help navigation through Wikipedia articles. The explanation of who owns cars at each point is details that can be carried in the articles and is beyond the scope of a navigational template.
 * And by the way, please don't try and edit war your version into the article. --Falcadore (talk) 14:39, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Inclusion of racing cars
Now that we have Team Lotus, which lists most of the Lotus racing cars, I'm wondering whether they still need to be listed in this template. Also noting that: Thoughts? DH85868993 (talk) 20:47, 8 November 2018 (UTC)
 * the titlebar says "Lotus production car timeline", and most of the racing cars weren't really production cars (e.g. only two Lotus 63s were built), and
 * most of the other templates I checked in Category:Automotive company timeline templates only list road cars, e.g. De Tomaso, Mercedes-Benz vehicles, Aston Martin vehicles timeline, etc
 * One issue I notice is that the Team Lotus template does not include any Lotus racing cars from after Team Lotus was dissolved in 1994, notably their BPR GT/FIA GT entries (Type 114 and Type 115) or their loosely-Lotus T128 LMP.
 * I'd also point out that Jaguar's road car timeline includes their sportscar and F1 programs, and there are a few others that I cannot remember off the top of my head. The359  ( Talk ) 21:17, 8 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Both good points. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I'm coming to realise that this template isn't just a Lotus production car timeline; it's a navbox connecting all articles related to Lotus Cars (I think I was just thrown by the titlebar). So perhaps the best approach would be to leave the template contents as is, and just change the titlebar (e.g. to "Lotus Cars" or "Lotus")? DH85868993 (talk) 21:24, 8 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Lotus was a racing team first, then a racing car manufacturer and finally a road car manufacturer. Plus a few other special projects here and there like it's own engine line and maybe most famously racing Bicycles for Team GB at the beginning of carbon fibre. Like Ferrari, the road cars began to help fund the racing team. And for most of Lotus life there was a common numbering scheme for all projects. The road cars later acquired the "E" names for the public. It's only been in the last 30 odd years that the two diverged. --Falcadore (talk) 05:25, 9 November 2018 (UTC)
 * If there are no objections within the next 48 hours, I'll change the titlebar to "Lotus Cars" (which, incidentally is what it was before the list of cars was reformatted into the "timeline" format back in 2009). DH85868993 (talk) 04:41, 25 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Done. DH85868993 (talk) 03:16, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

Breakup
I think we should split the timeline and article list into separate templates. I've already created timelines at User:Vossanova/Template:Lotus timeline 1950s–1980s and User:Vossanova/Template:Lotus timeline 1990s–present. Template:Lotus road car timeline, 1980s–present already exists, but it's only being used on two non-user pages, and I think it would be better to start the timeline split later. I may end up merging my changes into that one. As for the race car links, Template:Team Lotus exists, but I would leave the race car links in the Lotus Cars template for now. --Vossanova o&lt; 16:41, 20 September 2023 (UTC)