LOTUS founder Colin Chapman was a brilliant engineer and entrepreneur who designed some of Britain’s most spectacularly successful road and racing cars.

Whether on track or on road, Lotus cars suffered reliability problems, but, through thick and thin, enthusiasts remained largely loyal to the marque.

It’s hard to imagine the beleaguered Japanese manufacturer Toyota emerging from its current crisis in the same way Chapman so often managed to bounce back.

In terms of damage to a corporate brand and image, the Toyota recall crisis must be about as bad as it gets for a firm in the already challenged global automotive sector.

Toyota cars are being recalled around the world, including 180,000 in the UK, because of problems with the now infamous sticky accelerator pedal.

Such is the scale of the crisis, it’s not easy to fathom in which of Toyota’s markets around the world it is facing its most serious meltdown.Š

In volume terms, it’s the huge US market – and the threat of legal action in that country – that may be causing the longest stretches without sleep among senior Toyota officials.

One irony is that Toyota axed its own Grand Prix team at the end of last season. If it was still competing against the backdrop of its current profile, the extra damage to reputations and brand would be even greater.

The numbers behind Toyota’s woes are eye-watering.Š At the last confirmed count, a total of 8m cars are being recalled by dealers around the world.

The firm’s market value has plummeted by £19bn as share values collapse, and it has said it expects to lose $2bn from repairing vehicles and lost sales in the first quarter of 2010. That will pretty well wipe out profits of $1.7bn posted in the previous quarter.

In short, it’s open season on what has previously been one of the world’s strongest and most respected brands.

The world may be about to witness a textbook example of corporate crisis management. Then again, there are those observers who think it’s too late to rescue battered reputations, especially as new faults on more models are coming to light almost daily.

This drip, drip of bad news stems, say some, from the fact the firm has taken its eye off the reliability ball.

No longer, it seems, is the car in front a Toyota.