Tony Fernandes is aiming to create a "common brand" between Team Lotus and his newly-purchased Caterham road car company, although he said there were currently no plans to rename his Formula One team.
Fernandes confirmed the Caterham deal at Duxford airfield on Thursday but refused to be drawn on the exact plans for his "marriage" of the two companies. He said some of the decisions about the brands' futures would rest on the outcome of the naming dispute with Group Lotus, which is currently going through the High Court.
"My aim would be at some stage to have a common brand," Fernandes said. "I think that both have their aspirations. I think the way they come together will depend on the legal case and some of it will depend on how it looks and feels. But it's all to play for and to play with, which was the objective. As for the eventual shape and form of Caterham and the team, I don't know to be honest."
When asked by ESPNF1 if Caterham could be a possible replacement for the Team Lotus name should he lose the case with Group Lotus, Fernandes said: "It's something we never thought about to be honest. We've thought about bringing them together, but we have never thought about one substituting the other."
However, he did reveal that the Caterham brand would appear on the car in some form.
"There will be one [car manufacturer brand on the F1 car] and that is Caterham," Fernandes said, before clarifying that the Team Lotus brand is not a road car brand: "Team Lotus has nothing to do with Group Lotus and they've made it very clear about that. I think the world will slowly discover two brands - Team Lotus and Group Lotus. They will be like Manchester City and a Manchester United - they're as different as chalk and cheese. Over the years we will develop a Team Lotus brand and there is a Group Lotus brand so that's the way of the world. It wouldn't be the first [situation like that] and it won't be the last either.
"Exactly how we integrate Caterham into that and how we integrate Team Lotus into Caterham is beyond today, and to be honest I don't know 100% yet. We'll have to see how the judgement goes and a number of other things, but definitely there will be a marriage of some sort."
As for his plans for Caterham production cars, Fernandes hinted at a new closed-roof car similar to the Lotus Elise and an expansion in the Asian market. However, he said he would not ape Group Lotus by revealing a master plan outlining a definitive range of new production cars over the next five years.
"I'm not someone who comes in here and makes predictions about size and models and number of cars, I'd rather let the actions speak louder than words," he said. "Obviously in anything we've done we have dreams and aspirations but we'll wait and see whether we can deliver on those dreams and aspirations. The potential is there, Caterham is what I would describe as an un-cut, un-polished diamond and hopefully we can turn it in to a polished diamond. It's a racing heritage car company so there is a lot we can do with that."
Fernandes is hoping to create road cars with affordable F1 technology and is working with Caterham managing director Ansar Ali to make that happen.
"I'm a big believer in affordability and lots of technology in F1 is not affordable in a road car," Fernandes said. "One of the messages I've given Ansar is to try to do that. That's what we've done with Team Lotus fairly well is make our Formula One team fairly accessible. The potential is limitless and I was asked by a lot of the financial papers if this is a bad time to go into cars with recession around the corner, but I started an airline three days after 9/11. There's always a market if you produce something people want."
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