In the eyes of loyalists, Mr. Bahar had taken decades of Lotus history, rooted in the vaunted lightness of the nimble cars and their relative affordability, and set out to squash it.

“Aside from reeking of hubris, Bahar’s plan would have killed the beloved Elise,” said Tony Quiroga, a senior editor at Car and Driver, whose enthusiasm was such that he once owned an example of what he termed “the feathery sports car that saved the brand.”

Mr. Bahar, now president of Ares Design, a seller of custom interiors for luxury cars, did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Liz Brooks, the head of public relations and marketing for Ares, said in an email, “The business plan with the new models had the full buy-in and support from Proton and the Malaysian government. It was presented as a joint Lotus-Proton plan, and although he was the figurehead, it had already started before he even arrived. It’s a common misconception that he drove the entire thing; it was a group decision and a group effort.”

Mr. Bahar’s plan also involved delaying investment in the company’s best-selling Elise. The model became Lotus’s top model upon its introduction in 1995. With its lightweight, superstrong aluminum tub and midengine layout, it was a piece of engineering that shared an essential whiff of the weight-cheating genius found in the great Lotus race and road cars of the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s.

In 2005, it spearheaded the company’s return to the United States market and led to Lotus’s best sales in North America since the 1960s.