Tag Archives: Colin

Monocoque Revolution – Lotus 25 #R4 & #R5

There are some ideas that have to wait until just the right time in order to have an impact, one such case in point is the idea of using a monocoque shell to build a racing car chassis / body rather than the oft used couple of helfty rails or beams welded together or a more intricate space frame built up of small tubes welded together with a body thrown over the top.

The idea of using a monocoque shell made of fabricated sheets of metal to build a racing car can be traced back to 1912 when Howard Blood built a prototype cyclecar called a Cornelian which in 1915 was prepared by the Chevrolet brothers Louis and Albert for an attempt at the Indy 500. The Cornelian reached 12th place before it’s 33hp Sterling motor dropped a valve causing retirement. Around 100 monocoque chassis Cornelian cyclecars are thought to have been built before production came to a halt.

In 1923 aviation pioneer Gabriel Voisin built a team of four extraordinarily underpowered monocoque racing cars to take part in the French Grand Prix at Tours, giving away over 15 mph in top speed just one car survived to finish fifth and last over 1 and a quarter hours behind the winner over the 496 mile race distance.

Despite the success of the D-Type Jaguars at Le Mans in the mid 1950’s which featured a half monocoque design with the engine mounted on a sub frame it was not until 1962 that Colin Chapman revisited the monocoque idea for use in a Grand Prix Car and started to make the advantages of structural rigidity, thanks to the use of innovative steel bulkheads, weight saving and reduced frontal area work in the Lotus 25 design which shares identical suspension and running gear with the 1962 space frame Lotus 24.

The Lotus 25 chassis #R5 was one of seven such vehicles used for Grand Prix Racing from 1962 until models eventual swansong in 1967. The #R5 chassis was completed late in 1962 just in time for Jim Clark to attempt to clinch his first World Drivers title at the South African Grand Prix, unfortunately after starting from pole a tuppenny oil plug came lose and ended Jim’s race twenty laps early allowing Graham Hill to win both the race and the World Championship.

Jim used the car again in 1963 but Trevor Taylor was given #R5 to race at the second event of the season Belgian Grand Prix at Spa Francochamps. During practice for this event #R5’s suspension collapsed and the subsequent damage meant Trevor continued participating in the spare car #R3. Thanks to Roger, Rob of The Nostalgia Forum it has emerged that Trevor retired from the 1963 Belgian GP after 5 laps as the result of a severed thigh muscle.

Chassis #R5 was taken back to the Team Lotus Factory and stripped down to the bear monocoque which was put aside awaiting recycling when Lotus mechanic Cedric Selzer was given permission to take the wrecked monocoque, along with some redundant parts, home.

Over the next twenty years Cedric collected enough parts including a correct Coventry Climax V8 engine to ‘recreate’ the written off #R5 in 1984.

With the full knowledge of the story of #R5 being in the public domain this rare vehicle sold for just short of a million US$ at auction in 2007.

This second Lotus 25, chassis #R4 seen above with Andy Middlehurst at the wheel during the Goodwood Revival meeting has an even more amazing tail to tell, it is the remains of the very car which Jim Clark drove to a, for the period, record setting seven Grand Prix victories on his way to securing the 1963 World Drivers Championship and the World Manufacturers Championship for Lotus.

In 1964 #R4 was driven by Formula Junior sensation Peter Arundell who started his first full season in Grand Prix racing with two third place finishes in the opening two races at Monaco and Zandvoort (Holland) and came home 4th in the French Grand Prix which proved to be his last of the 1964 season thanks to an accident in an open wheel Formula 2 race which effectively ended Peter’s career although he did unsuccessfully return to the wheel in 1965.

#R4 was then sold to Reg Parnell who replaced the Coventry Climax V8 with a BRM V8 and then given first to South African Tony Maggs and then Richard Atwood to drive. Richard crashed the car in the Belgian Grand Prix after which the repaired chassis was given the #R13 chassis number by the Parnnel Team in what might be considered a slight of hand to make the car look like it had a later Lotus 33 type chassis number, the #R13 chasssis number having been passed over by Team Lotus. #R13 also acquired the nickname Percy at this time.

Innes Ireland and Bob Bondurant competed in one further race each with ‘Percy’ towards the end of 1965 and in 1966 Mike Spence took over the driving duties scoring 2 season best 5th place finishes in Percy which was now fitted with a larger BRM P60 V8 motor.

Piers Courage and Chris Irwin both took a championship Grand Prix start each in Percy during 1967 Chris recording a 7th place finish in the cars final Grand Prix in Holland.

Peter Yock became the owner of #R13 in 1968 and he raced the car in the Antipodes passing it on to fellow Kiwi Peter Hughes for 1970, Hughes replaced the by now damaged BRM V8 with a dry sumped V8 sourced from a Daimler and when that proved recalcitrant had a Twin Cam 4 cylinder Ford motor fitted.

#R13 then disappeared until Lotus aficionado John Dawson Damer tracked it down for his Lotus Collection in Australia, when John had the car restored it was discovered that #R13 was not a similar later Lotus 33 spec monocoque at all but that it still had all the identifying monocoque features associated with the Lotus 25 and in particular chassis #R4. Like Cedric John also acquired the correct Coventry Climax V8 type motor to restore #R4 to it’s original splendor and in 1997 #R4 returned to Gooodwood for the first time.

Again with all of the details of this car in the public domain this car sold at an Australian Auction for just short of a million US$ in 2008.

It’s a sobering thought that Jim Clark was entered to drive a Lotus 25 in 30 championship Grand Prix races, he won 14 of them, won one world championship (1963) and but for some cheap engine parts might have won two more (1962 & ’64). One thing was for sure, after the advent of the Lotus 25 the writing on the wall was written large that the days of the space frame racing car particularly in open wheel racing was effectively over.

Finally a well known resource states that Lotus driver Trevor Taylor is credited with ‘inventing’ the yellow stripe that ran the length of some Team Lotus racing cars from May 1963 until the Lotus sponsorship deal with Players Gold Leaf Tobacco came into effect in 1968. There is to the best of my knowledge no evidence to support this myth, it would appear the yellow stripe was first used on Jim Clark’s #92 Lotus 29 Indy Car in May 1963 and next appeared on his, and only his, Lotus 25 at the British Grand Prix in July 1963.

My thanks to Barry, Davids McKinie and Lawson, Vicuna, Roger and Rob at The Nostalgia Forum for their help dispelling the Trevor Taylor myth.

Thanks for joining me on this Monocoque Revolution edition of ‘Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres’, I hope you will join me again tomorrow. Don’t forget to come back now !

14/01/12 Amendment it has come to light thanks to Roger Clark that Trevor Taylor had his mishap with #R5 during practice for the Belgian GP at Spa not during the race as originally stated in the text above.

Wheels & Studs – Lotus 23B

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The Lotus 23 is a 900 lb / 408 kgs sports racing car, with a nominal passenger seat, built around a wide version of the Lotus 22 chassis frame with identical suspension to the single seater.

Customers had motors installed, from 750 cc / 41 cui to 2 over litres / 122 cui, that were manufactured by Coventry Climax, Lotus, Ford, BMW, Saab and even Ferrari amongst others.

In 1962 over 130 Lotus 23’s were built that are known to have been entered in over 600 national and international events and recorded over 110 outright victories and a more than a further 130 class victories up to the Kyalami 9 hours in 1981.

The Lotus 23 has two important footnotes recorded in the annals of Motor Racing history, both dating to 1962 first Jim Clark qualified a Lotus 23 6th for the 1000 kms race at Nurburgring, a race which included an impressive array of powerful Ferrari’s Porsche’s and Jaguars. The race started in the rain and the nimble Jim and the 100 hp Lotus 23 shot away from the Le Mans type start into the lead and remained there ahead of Dan Gurney in a Porsche until lap 12 of 44 when he was overcome by fumes from a split exhaust manifold and crashed, without injury. Phil Hill and Olivier Gendebien eventually won the race in a Ferrari 246S.

For Le Mans in 1962 Lotus entered two cars one 750 cc / 45 cui and the other 1 litre 61 cui which is said to have upset several French teams causing the organisers to throw the Lotus team out of the race first on the grounds that the front and rear wheel hubs had 4 and 6 studs respectively, when this was rectified the organisers threw the cars out again because the front a rear wheels were different sizes meaning the spare wheel which had to be carried could not be fitted to front & rear axles. This was the final straw for Colin Chapman who vowed “We will never race again at Le Mans!” a promise he kept until his death in 1982.

The Lotus 23B seen here at the Goodwood Revival is driven by Chris Goodwin who finished third in the Madgwick Cup.

T22222 is an Austrian registration number that appeared on chassis 23-S-68 that was driven by Austrian hotelier Alban Scheiber on hillclimb events in 1963.

Chris Goodwin is yet another of my former racing instructors at Brands Hatch, who is better known as a sportscar racer, TV presenter and McLaren Automotive’s Chief Test Driver and Bruno Senna’s Manager.

My thanks to Lutz ‘r.altos’ M for the information regarding Alban Scheiber.

Thanks for joining me on this Wheels and Studs edition of ‘Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres’, I hope you will join me again tomorrow. Don’t forget to come back now !

PS Don’t forget …

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Thread Breakers – Lotus 20 # 20-J-892

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In 1958 at the suggestion of engineer, journalist and former racing driver Count Giovanni “Johnny” Lurani Formula Junior was adopted as an entry level form of open wheel racing that mandated the use of engines, gearboxes and brakes from everyday production road cars.

There were two classes up to 1000cc / 61 cui vehicles were allowed to run with a minimum weight of 360 kgs / 792 lbs and up 1100cc / 67 cui were allowed to run with a minimum weight of 400 kgs / 880lbs. The larger engine class was the most popular and initially a large variety of motors were used including FIAT, BMC, Moskvitch with 4 stroke 4 cylinder engines while SAAB and DKW 2 stroke 3 cylinder engines were also popular.

The series initially featured front engine vehicles but followed the trend set in Formula One and went the rear engined route at the turn of the decade. Lotus built a successful variation of the Lotus 18 Formula One car for formula Junior in 1960 and followed that up with Lotus 20 model that is featured today.

This particular Lotus 20, # 20-J-892, belongs to long time Lotus enthusiast Ralf Pickel, who fell in love with Lotus cars thanks in part to Matchbox, from Schwabach in Southern Germany.

# 20-J-892 was supplied new to Honda Racing Team manager and ex motorcycle racer Reg Armstrong fitted with a Cosworth tuned Ford engine number # 61425. Reg is thought to have driven the car at several events in Ireland.

After being sold on, first to Edmund Gill then to Bill Popplewell, who shared the driving with Frank Keane in Ireland, the car was fitted with a larger engine in 1965 by Brian Cullen for entry into Formula Libre events.

At Phoenix Park a drive shaft, which also acts as a critical suspension component, snapped causing an accident while Brian was at the wheel, that damaged the left hand side of the chassis.

Gordon Percy bought the damaged 20-J-892 with the intention of using it to build a grass track racer but over a period of 20 years he never quite got round to it and in 2000 the car left Ireland and ended up being restored by Michael Hibberd who replaced the damaged chassis members. After a couple of further documented changes of ownership Ralf bought the car from Richard Smeeton, who had a fresh £12,000 Richardson built Ford Formula Junior engine installed, earlier this year.

Ever since he bought the car Ralf has been wondering why the mirrors are mounted so high and close together on the screen, the probable answer has recently come to light that in the absence of timing beams on hill climbs a thread was stretched across the finish line of these events that mechanically stopped the timing clock when it was broken as cars crossed the finish line.

One one occasion when Reg Armstrong was driving today’s featured Lotus 20, which was considerably lower than all of the other vehicles in a contest, the thread was broken not by the car but Reg’s chin, reportedly causing copious blood shed.

Subsequently it is thought the mirrors were placed high on the screen to prevent further injury. A similar bloody fate befell the slightly taller Edmund Gill when he drove 20-J-892 following year when again the height of the finish line thread took no account of how low the Lotus 20 was.

To date Ralf has only had the opportunity to do some testing and demonstration events with this neat racer, but has plans to drive the car in anger for the first time next year hopefully at Hockenheim in April and Salzburgring in May.

My thanks to Ralf for sharing the photo’s and information on his Lotus. Thanks to TNFers Alan Cox, David Mckinney, Simon Thomas, Bill P, Richard Hinton, David Beard, Tim Murray, Richard Young, Edward Fitzgerald and larryd who contributed to the Lotus 20 and Reg Armstrong threads on The Nostalgia Forum.

Thanks for joining me on this Formula Junior edition of ‘Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres’ I hope you will join me again tomorrow. Don’t forget to come back now !

3 Graces – Ford Zephyr MK2

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In 1954 Colin Neale lead a team that styled the Ford Consul, Zephyr and Zodiac Mk2 that all shared the same body, by the end of the year prototype cars were being tested across Europe and in 1955 further prototypes were being tested against the back drop of the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya.

In February 1956 the ‘3 Graces’, as the models became unofficially known, were launched on the market the Consul with a 4 cylinder 1703 cc / 104 cui motor and the Zephyr and Zodiac with 6 cylinder 2553 cc / 156 cui motors.

Versions of the ‘3 Graces’ can be seen above, 410VRE is a 1958 Zephyr Farnham, a model which was selected by five police forces to became Britain’s first Motorway Patrol Cars in 1959. The Convertible 527FGY is a ’62 Consul, less than 30 ‘3 Grace’ Convertibles are thought to exist because the soft top conversion took so much strength out of the unitary chassis. 707JDV following the Consul is a 1961 top of the range Zodiac Farnham estate / station wagon.

The 1959 Zephyr Mk2 is seen above at Mallory Park being prepared by Ian Kellet Racing for Barrie ‘Whizzo’ Williams, seen standing to the right of the photo above, to drive in last year Goodwood Revival meeting.

Between 1956 and 1962 294,506 3 Grace models were built alongside 6,911 Convertibles. Some of all three variants were built in Fords Geelong factory south of Melbourne.

Thanks for joining me on this 3 Graces edition of ‘Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres’ I hope you will join me again tomorrow. Don’t forget to come back now !

Leased Winner – Lotus 18

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Following the lead set by Cooper Cars winners of the 1959 World Manufacturers Championship for Formula One cars Colin Chapman took the rear engine plunge and built the Lotus 18 open wheeler that could be entered with the correct engine spec in to either Formula Junior, Two or One races.

Rob Walker, heir to the whiskey family of the same name, leased a Lotus 18 with a Coventry Climax motor for Stirling Moss to drive in the 1960 Grand Prix season. On the cars debut, in Monaco, Stirling qualified on pole and eventually won the race, giving Lotus their first Formula One victory after both Jo Bonnier in a BRM and Jack Brabham driving a Cooper Cliax had spent time leading the intermittently wet race.

An accident at Spa interrupted Stirling’s 1960 season but he bounced back with a win at the season ending US Grand Prix again driving this Lotus 18 for entrant Rob Walker. The following season a smaller Coventry Climax motor was fitted to this chassis, seen here at Donington Park Museum, as required by the new regulations for the 1961 season.

(Copyright holder unknown image will be removed or credited upon request)

Amazingly Stirling Moss managed to not only win pole at Monaco in 1961 ahead of three more powerful shark nose Ferrari’s but then, after dicing with Richie Ginther in his Ferrari, proceeded to win the race, a then record setting third Monaco Grand Prix victory.

Later in the season Stirling Moss would take his final Formula One victory driving the Lotus 18, fitted with newer Lotus 21 bodywork, at the German GP at the Nurburgring. At the start of the 1962 season Moss was lucky to escape with his life from a career ending accident at Goodwood before the Grand Prix season got under way.

Thanks for joining me on this Stirling Moss edition, of ‘Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres’, I hope you will join me again tomorrow. Don’t forget to come back now !

Low Rider – Lotus 15

You can’t go wrong with a Bristol under the bonnet #2 – Lotus X

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The Lotus X was a variant of the Lotus marks VIII and IX, built in 1955 to accommodate a larger engine than its siblings.

Using essentially a strengthened chassis the Lotus X carried a 6 cylinder 2 litre /122 cui Bristol engine as used by Lotus competitors Cooper and Lister.

Only 6 or 7 Lotus Mk X’s are thought to have been built and some of them raced with Turner or Coventry Climax motors instead of the Bristol as used by Team Lotus.

The Lotus X was driven to victories in both Europe and the United States. This particular Bristol engined example is seen at the recent Silverstone Classic with Nick Adams at the wheel. Nick and Co Driver Adrian Hall drove this car to three straight victories in 2008 and were awarded the Woodcote Cup.

Thanks for joining me on this Britol Powered edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres’, I hope you will join me again tomorrow. Don’t forget to come back now !

Gettin' A Li'l Psycho On Tyres

Art Tidesco blogs on all things motoring