Group Lotus' car sales have entered the growth fast lane as it recorded its best performance for seven years.
The Norfolk sports car manufacturer notched a 55pc surge in sales to the end of the 2014/15 financial year, selling 2,015 vehicles compared to 1,296 the year before.
It comes as the Hethel-based company has continued to expand its global footprint by adding 36 dealerships in the last 11 months, bringing total dealerships to 174 worldwide.
In March, the firm moved to cement its turnaround strategy when it announced the arrival of the Evora 400 sports car at the Geneva Motor Show.
Jean-Marc Gales, chief executive of Group Lotus, said: 'This positive result is something that we have not witnessed at Lotus for many years. We are meeting both time and budget deadlines.
'Yet, we appreciate that we still have hard work to do to maintain the progress. Our continued expansion demonstrates the customer confidence in Lotus and that our product development strategy is meeting its objectives, while remaining true to our core pillars of efficiency, light weight, high performance and driving purity in the most desirable packaging.'
The company's efforts to make further inroads into global markets appear to be paying off, with 186pc sales growth in China, 177pc in France, 130pc in Germany, and 103pc in Japan, which remains its largest export market.
The UK market has more than doubled to 346 vehicles sold, while USA, which sells the Evora range as a road car and the Elise and Exige ranges for track use only, has increased by 24pc.
The growth has been underpinned by an 80pc volume expansion of the Elise range to 729 cars, with Exige S up 52pc to 724 vehicles and the Evora rising 35pc to 562 cars.
Mr Gales added: 'The reason that we are making such vital headway lies in our employees' commitment to avoid delays in project deliveries and I am immensely pleased with the cultural changes that have been effected by our staff across the whole of Lotus. 'Looking to the future, we are working on new Lotus cars and have a number of exciting announcements and reveals over the next 18 months.'
Lotus, which cut 252 jobs in Norfolk last year to create a more efficient organisation, reduced its losses from £167.8m to £71.1m to the end of March 2014.
The EDP Top100 firm plans to recruit 150 new staff – the majority in the region – as it looks to up production of all its models to 70 cars per week by the end of September.
• Do you have a business story for the Eastern Daily Press? Contact business editor Ben Woods on 01603 772426 or email ben.woods@archant.co.uk
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here