Lotus are hand built too. [...] Management focused on improvement - probably forced because the press took more interest in Lotus than Morgan - and from 2008-on the cars are pretty good. Every year they get better.
I agree, that Lotus has a good built quality. I know because I have a 2007 Elise from new, now for sale...
I would like to add, that efforts in the car industry to reach a better quality standard are most times a reactive behave.
In 2001 the Opel/Vauxhall Speedster was launched. In 2002 a buddy from university time was employed in the market research department of Opel in Rüsselsheim. He told me (secretly at that time) that a bunch of several 100 cars had to be returned to Lotus, because the quality was very very poor and Opel/Vauxhall refused to accept this Speedsters, built at Lotus plant. Lotus had to spend huge money and time to rework them all. That was a very bitter pill for Lotus and the main reason why Lotus could transfer the quality expectations of GM to their own brand. Therefore the better quality on Lotus cars was a nice side effect of this issue with GM but not motivated by Lotus itself in the first place.
