Lotus: From a London Garage to Formula 1 World Championship

[Music] in racing through time we look at the drivers the teams the races and the circuits that made Motorsport history the story of lotus is the story of one man Colin Chapman Chapman's influence on the world of motor racing was immense his unique talent as an engineer designer entrepreneur and above all enthusiast morning [Music] [Music] Colin Chapman had the determination to steer Lotus from a North London backyard to World Championship success in racing through time we speak to those who knew Colin Chapman his wife Hazel team drivers Cliff Allison and inis Ireland Betty Hill and

engineer Keith Duckworth this is the story of how the team made its first steps towards Grand Prix success Anthony Colin Bruce Chapman was born in Richmond in Su on the 19th of May 1928 his father was the owner of the orange tree Public House and later moved to the Railway Hotel in Tottenham Lane hornsey North London Colin attended the stationers company School in hornsey he decided on a career as an engineer in March 1944 he was to meet the woman in his life Hazel Williams at a dance at the hornny Town Hall it was the

first dance I'd ever been to as a matter of fact and uh it's just amazing that I happened to meet him Chapman enrolled at University College London in October 1945 to study engineering he devoted his spare time to developing an interest in trading cars and Motorsport I mean first of all it was a bicycle then it was a motorbike um cars he he used to dabble in secondhand cars try and make a bit of money did she realize where it was going to lead not until until he did actually make one um in the lock

up where I lived the back of the house where I lived with my parents we started in um trials we didn't race immediately we first of all we went on these mud plugging trials which were great fun in 1948 Chapman graduated as a civil engineer and continued to compete in car trials the vehicles used were similar to those used in Club racing while at University Colin learned to fly and then joined the Raf in a short-term commission this experience was to influence the rest of his life owning his own plane and basing his designs on

aircraft Construction [Music] principles he experimented with other types of Motorsport then we did hill climbs and Sprints still with the trials cars and then I suppose conin got the buck for motor racing and uh started designing a car specifically for motor racing so what started off as one car just for fun started to expand well I think we built about three or four cars first before he started selling them to other people the first Lotus made for sale was the Mark 6 it had a light but rigid multitubular space frame there were take a number

of different engines and was sold as a kit of parts to avoid Purchase Tax and I bought a kit to build a Lotus Mark 6 or I bought the chassis or organized that from Lotus and went to my local Friendly Ford dealer Skippers of Burnley and organized to get back axles and front axles and all the bits of Ford that we used in The Mark 6 and so whilst at University in one of the summer holidays I built the Lotus Mark 6 from this kit of bits um I had the 1100 climax was available at

that time or just becoming available and I actually got one of the first 25 of the racing 1100 climaxes and fitted it into this Mark 6 with a mg TC gearbox yeah I had great delusions of grandeur as a racing driver and um as soon as I I finished at University I attempted to race my uh Marx 6 Lotus with some success uh I wouldn't have said sir I then went to uh Goodwood again and U it was approaching the chicane that my brakes locked and refused to unlock and I hit the chicane which was

a mobile lump of wood at that time with a a stack of geraniums along the top and I moved this about 6 ft along and then ended up with a plant pot full of geraniums in my lap and a very bent car I'd already decided really that there were people who could drive naturally and another category who gained competence by experience I decided I was firmly in that category and that it was actually a very slowly gaining competence with experience and that therefore I better find something else to do and so I couldn't and I

couldn't afford to do otherwise uh so I forgot about racing and concentrated on playing about with racing cars and engines in October 1954 Colin and Hazel were married and bought a home near Barnett Chapman was working long hours at two jobs by day for British aluminium and at night for Lotus in those days there wasn't anything else to do really I mean we didn't watch television there were no lovely restaurants to go to people didn't dash off abroad for summer holidays and that sort of thing know just after the war there really wasn't an awful

lot for young people to do so working filled the Gap really he used to come home and um we had a drawing desk in our home and he used to spend most of his time at that he was just doing what he enjoyed designing cars in the early ' 50s Britain didn't have a successful Grand Prix team in sports car racing it was a different story Jaguar with their C and D types and the db3s Aston Martin were taking on Ferrari Maserati and Mercedes-Benz Jaguar had already won lar in 1951 and 53 and finished second

in 1954 small sports cars like MGS hrgs and Fraser nashes were modified pre-war designs although Lotus had used Ford and mg engines all this was to change when centry climax introduced the 4-cylinder 1100c single overhead camshaft engine this had been developed from their successful fire pump unit the engine was developed by Walter Hassan and Harry Mundy for Leonard Lee of Coventry climax [Music] circuit racing in Britain was held mainly at silverston and Goodwood sports cars were built by established manufacturers such as mg Triumph Riley or fren Ash or by small manufacturers with modest premises like

John and Charles Cooper at ceton the alternative was to use a small lockup garage and have a job in the day and work on the car in the evening that was how Lotus started Colin Chapman decided his next car however would be truly aerodynamic Mike Coston now Chapman's partner introduced him to his brother Frank who was an aerodynamicist with the havland aircraft company the result was the Lotus Mark 8 9 and 10 Chapman designed the Lotus 8 with far more ambition he wanted a larger engine and more power a four-speed gearbox hydraulic brakes and more

advanced suspension and most importantly an aerodynamic body Frank Coston designed the body with its twin tail fins and it was very efficient the MK 8 was fitted with a board out mg1 1250 engine now at 1498 CC and developing 98 horsepower with the help of the slippery aerodynamic body it was one of the most potent 1500 sports cars in the country and it was followed by the marks 9 and 10 the nine was fitted with the Coventry CL Max 1100c unit and the 10 with the mg or the Bristol unit or even the alter based

conort engine at liar in 1955 Colin chapen began his LoveHate affair with a 24-hour classic race the entry of the 1100 Mark 9 was accepted and it was specially prepared for the [Music] event the races that attracted entries from many sports car manufacturers the new MGA and the trif t2s made their debut here alongside Lotus Chapman himself and Ron Flockhart drove the car Chapman was extremely accomplished as a driver and led his class in the early stages before experiencing difficulty with a slipping clutch after some sand had been put on it the car was competitive

again the early part of the race saw a tremendous battle between Hawthorne's jaguar and fangio's Mercedes-Benz with a lead changing frequently Chapman was in and among the small car competitors when the tragic accident happened for which the 1955 race is remembered the Lotus had slid off at arage and was disqualified for backing out this was not the last run in between Lotus and the lar officials the race was won by Hawthorne and bab for jaguar in the 1955 Goodwood 9h hour race Cliff Davis and Peter Scott Russell in their Bristol engined Mar Mark 10's battled

with Archie Scott Brown's Lista Bristol on this occasion the Lista had the advantage over the Mark 10 Chapman's leading 1500 blew up after 7 hours and Cliff Davis finished a f second in his class with the Mark 10 the TT at dundrod in Northern Ireland in September was lotus's best race in 1955 Chapman and new recruit Cliff Alis in the 1100 Mark 999 impressed everyone leading the 2 L class by 9 minutes and leading the index of performance by miles until the oil pump [Music] fractured there was serious accidents at dundrod which emphasize the dangers

of Motorsport at the [Music] time when you're young you don't worry do you like do was you get older I just used to be extremely annoyed if he didn't finish the race and uh crash the car or something then make a lot more work for everyone to have to rebuild it by now Lotus had acquired a new employee in Graham Hill he and Cliff Allison were to shape lotus's future he was a mechanic mechanic home race driver and uh he didn't have a car so he was he he got talking to a man called Mike

ctin who is who is Cosworth and um he said Mike said where you going he said I'm going back to London how are you getting there well I mean can you give me a lift yeah okay so they got into this furniture van and the driver um just looked at this third person and they toled off down past swanley and there was um a greasy spoon so you know one of these terrible cafes and uh Colin and it happened to be Colin Chapman who was the driver of this van and he said come on we'll

stop here and have something to eat and um they got talking and gr realized by then that it was um Colin chap of lotus and he asked him for a job Colin thought that he was Mike's friend and Mike didn't know him any more than and Colin or Graham knew you know they didn't know each other at all it just happened along each other so that was the beginning of their association with Colin and Lotus when Colin wanted uh to have a replacement Works driver he contacted re tan who was then the U competition manager

for ESO and uh he looked through his list of drivers who he had contracted to him on other formulas and I was one was on the Formula 3 and uh I went when I went down to snon Red asked me if I would like to try a Lotus out and uh I said yes I would like to try one out and so I went out and did a a lap around the track and uh at that time Peter jop and uh Ron flart were the works drivers for for Lotus and uh I went reasonably quickly

and then uh I came in again and uh re was in conversation with Colin and they seemed quite pleased and uh red said to me do you think you could go a little bit quicker I said oh yes I could go quite a lot quicker you know he said mine don't bend it cuz it's the only one we've got you know so I went out and uh went a little quicker and said thank you very much and went on and did my own Formula 3 racing in the same day and uh when I got back

to uh Bruff way up in the Frozen North there was a contract from Lotus waiting on the table for me to drive for them so that's how I originally joined Lotus was this a proper Works car or did Cliff Own It Well in those days um to avoid paying Purchase Tax which it was in those days um you could you could have you could have one racing car each and so we all ended up with a car each uh on the record but uh they were all actually owned by the team Lotus an indication of

Chapman and coston's growing reputation was when they were invited by the owner of vanwall Tony Vandal to redesign the chassis and body of the Grand Prix car in 1956 the result was superbly efficient the teardrop shaped Van Wall which was to go on to great [Applause] things for the French Grand Prix of RS Chapman was invited to drive the van wall and in practice was shown around by Mike Hawthorne breaking for The tiir Hairpin at the end of the long straight was not a simple business unfortunately due to ineffective rear brakes Chapman crashed into a

concrete post his only chance to drive in a ground breis this was particularly unfortunate as he was just getting used to the car and it was widely thought that Chapman would have made a First Rate Grand Prix driver if he'd so wished he was a very good driver um I quite think that uh had not been more interested in the uh mechanical side and the cars he would he would have certainly made a very good Grand Prix driver the Chapman Coston modified Van Wall gave Sterling moss and Tony Brooks their victory in the British Grand

Prix at anry Moss also won at pascar in Italy and the Italian Grand Prix in 1957 in 1958 Moss battled with Mike Hawthorne's Ferrari for the world championship van wals driven by moss and Brooks won eight World Championship Grand Prix during the year and the Constructor Championship for the first time in 1958 Moss lost the driver's Crown by just one point to Mike Hawthorne Chapman was even asked by brm to assist with their cars there was a period where several people asked him to drive their car that they designed in in motor racing and um

that rather annoyed me because I didn't think they were up to his um standard of Designing cars and they expected him to drive it in a race and then redesign it for them uh which I thought was a um you know would competition for us so it would be much better if he gave that up and just concentrated on designing his own cars but then he I think he realized that he it would be better better if he got someone else to drive it 1956 saw the introduction of arguably Chapman's most successful sports racing car

the Lotus 11 designed as a replacement for the mark 9 it featured a space frame Chassy with independent front suspension and an optional Deon rear axle covered by an aerodynamic body the 11 would take a variety of engines from the 1100 and 1500 centry climax and even the Maserati more than 200 were built the model was to prove one of the most successful racing cars ever made by now gram Hill had progressed at Lotus having risen from the ranks of mechanic to racing driver here he's seen driving an 1100 Lotus 11 and leading field the

Lotus 11 in the hands of talented Club Racers was winning races all over Europe Graham Hill winds Alon Park although at Lamar he was back on the spanners as Chief mechanic despite the frar in 1955 Lotus entered three cars for 56 two were 1100s and one had the 1500 climax engine at the start Sterling Mars as usual sped into the lead with his Aston Martin followed by Ron Flockhart in the Accura cost D Type Jaguar The Works Jaguar team was decimated by a crash in the 's and fuel injection problems on hawthor 's car leaving

Flockhart and Sanderson to battle it out with moss and Peter Collins for the lead meanwhile Chapman in the 1500 car was well up with the porser opposition and Cliff Allison was leading the 1100s at dawn the usual tricky Mist settled on the surface Allison hit a large dog which ran onto the circuit and as a result the car was retired badly damaged by the middle of the day Chapman and Herbert McKay frasers 1500 retired with big end for Peter jop and re Bell were involved in a scrap with hugos and Bentley in the Cooper for

the 1100cc class this battle was watched by sometime Lotus drivers Hawthorne and Flockhart the Lotus was catching the Cooper and to everyone's surprise overtook on the last lap to win the 1100s and make Chapman's day Flockhart and Sanderson won the race for Jaguar and the little lotuses finished first and fourth in the index of performance the sports governing body had announced the introduction of Formula 2 for 1500 CCC cars in 1956 and Chapman decided to build the Lotus 12 to compete in this formula coil springs and the Chapman strut rear suspension were a feature of

the car it's main opposition was from kooper the Lotus 12 was front engined while the kooper was rear engined both cars were powered by the centry climax twin cam engine at this time Cooper was still using transverse leaf springs and wishbones together with their damper units Cliff Allison is here seen reunited with the Lotus 12 we talk to another great Lotus name inis Ireland a friend of my brother uh came down to Goodwood once when I was racing the Brooklyn 59 and he saw there were Lotus 11s racing around and that evening after the race

he said you know why don't you uh I was always trying to beat the handicapper with my little Riley and doing quite well at it uh by one way or another um and he said why don't you get you know a Lotus 11 and I said well it's you know I don't quite have enough money to to do that and he said well you know I probably help you out and so we finished up you know working something out and uh so I went and bought a Lotus 11 and uh and I raced that in

a couple of meetings at the end of uh 1956 one at Goodwood the last of the Club BARC club meetings and then I raced again uh at anry uh there was the race meeting at entry I was then on my way up to the highlands to go deer stalking and so just did the race on the way and then parked the car and left the car on its Trail or somewhere and went on up to Scotland um and so that you know I was fairly competitive straight away on equal terms with people like Alan Stacy

who was driving for Lotus and uh Keith Hall and Peter ashtone and people and uh so that really you know it's the first time I had a competitive car that I could drive and scratch races further developed for 1957 the 11 scene here is the John kum's car for Ron flock hard to drive in the British Empire trophy at Alton Park John and Gibson briefs the drivers and at the start the race was a battle between Flockhart in the kum's car and Chapman in his Works car Chapman spun and lost ground while Flockhart driving superbly

increased his lead try as he might Chapman couldn't catch Flockhart and had to settle for second place Flockhart takes the checker flag with Chapman coming through in second I'd always wanted to be a racing driver and I was running my own business which gradually turned around from being Rolls-Royce and Bentley orientated into uh tuning and preparing racing cars and I finished up uh running a team of about half a dozen Lotus 11s and I think we had a Lola and one or two other you know but uh I was entering and preparing and transporting these

cars or to all the meetings and uh so uh I was doing my own Motor Racing but also making something of an income by preparing other people's cars I was asked to drive for team lotus in my very in that first year of 57 and I drove in what was then the Swedish gr Prix uh in the middle of 1957 but that was a a Works car and and again I drove in the three-hour race at Spar that year 57 but again it was a Works car it wasn't uh and it was 1500 CC as

opposed to my own private car which was 1,00 so I mean I was asked uh in my very first year uh halfway through it I I I was asked to drive for The Works in 1957 Chapman was determined to again win the prestigious index of performance at Limar he persuaded centry climax to build a special 750cc engine yes it was interesting was Lon because uh we we won the index of performance as you know in 1957 with Keith Hall and myself and the prize money was uh £4,000 of which the arrangement was that the manufacturer

kept half the prize money and the drivers kept half the prize money and so uh Keith and I ended up with ,000 each and we were we thought we were millionaires [Music] [Music] that how did centry climax reduce the engine's capacity instead of uh reducing the bore and the stroke they decided to just reduce the stroke so they put a very short throw uh crankshaft in it and that brought it down to the 750 cc with when big Pistons consequently the the gas flow was uh at at at low revs was nil and uh you

had to be the um below 7,000 there was uh very little power the the power started to come in at 7,000 between 7 and 8 you had power and and the rest of it you had nothing well we obviously drove it as as quietly as possible but we were watching results and getting uh the results of the uh it was a very complicated for formula for working out the index and uh we kept getting feedback every time we came into the pits as to whether we should go a little quicker or a little slower so

one of the interesting things that happened in that race was that uh in our briefing Before the Race Colin said uh if you find anything's going to fall off or anything like that is don't go around to the pits you know pull into the side and if you can repair it and to to keep it going and uh so I I was uh going down the Mulan straight and I heard a little zing zing zing zing on from the front end of the car and uh there were some uh signaling pits at um mulan's corner

there and so I I I I just got past them and then I pulled onto the side of the road and I lifted the Bonnet and uh the wheel Arch where it came down at the back the uh a little bit of aluminium had broken and it it flapped up and and the wheel was catching on this aluminum and it was making this zing zing so I just straightened up the piece of aluminium and got got it back into the car and drove around again and of course I didn't realize but that caused them all

to have kittens in the pits because they thought the car had packed in yes oh yes it was all very carefully calculated and the Frenchmen being what they are they' made the pricee for the uh index the same as the prize for the overall winners and uh because they were quite sure that the DB pads would win the index and uh they were quite miffed when we won the index because we we got all this prize money which was superb 1958 saw the Lotus 15 introduced built to take larger engines including the new form fora

2 1500 centry climax unit fast but fragile it was fitted with a new Lotus gearbox known as the queer box best races I had which got me some attention was the three-hour race at claron ferand um which was a world championship race three-hour race and uh and with my little Lotus 11 I beat all the bloody Works 3 l Ferraris Tran J and a lot of them which uh you know sort of fanzo Ferrari had he said they were beaten by who driving a what you know little ladies 11 and beat you know that and

that was an amazing you know because I you know won the thing out right 1958 was not a good year for lotus in sports car racing the 15 was fast but unreliable Hill won some smaller races as did Roy salvadori in the kums including the Gold Cup at Alton Park at Lamar the 2 L of Hill and Allison although quicker than the Ferraris lasted only three [Music] laps all the lotuses retired except the 750 car of Stacy and Dixon which was still running at 4:00 in 20th Place at Monaco in 58 Chapman had been persuaded

to try his hand at grum pry racing following the vanwall example [Music] M I have a great affection for Monte Carlo you see and even going down on the very very first time we stayed along this the coast at a place called a and it was called the bananer and um none of the team had any money none of them and the cars were coming down in Furniture Vans again and we um we we literally scrimped and scraped I think we drove down there we certainly didn't have enough money to fly down there and there

was Hazel Chapman and myself and I think Cliff Allison's wife there were three girls it was a big treat for us you see and we stood on those pits and timed the fellows in dresses I mean we never thought about having to climb over pits the way we did so there we were sitting up there in short summer dresses but exciting very very exciting while the new 16 was being built Hill and Allison drove the old Lotus 12 fitted with a 1.9 and 2.2 L climax engines and they were raced until the 16 was ready

uh well my first uh Formula One drive with the Lotus was uh in the Monte Carlo Grand Prix in 1958 I did drive uh in 57 in Formula 2 races with the 1 and a half L engine but uh the car that I drove at Monte Carlo in 1958 had a 2.2 L engine and uh I managed to finish six I think Graham Hill had started last and had to retire when a drive shaft broke Allison despite overheating problems and not having any brakes drove a steady race moss and Hawthorne were involved in their private

battle for the championship but could only look on as Rob Walker's Cooper climax won its second Grand PRI in a row why was the Cooper better than the lus well I think it was probably due to the handling characteristics of the car uh and possibly a little bit uh to the drivers because I pre I preferred driving on very fast circuits and I think you'll find if you look back in the records that on the fast circuits the Lotus was quicker than the coopa and uh on the twisty circuits the coopa was better The coopa

was rear engined of course in those days and uh I think probably had a little bit better traction the Belgian drum Prix held at the spa franos circuit was always an exciting race due to a mixup at the start start by the timekeepers several cars were already overheating when the race [Music] started M missed a gear and over revved his engine while Collins's Ferrari battled with Tony Brooks vanoir orthorn was in third place and then Collins had to retire with overheating Tony Brooks took over and driving on one of his favorite circuits he began to

pull out a lead [Music] Brooks reveled in the fast and daunting highspeed curves at Spar another enjoying the high-speed race was Cliff Allison the the thing I I like going fast you know the faster the car went the better I I had no fear of speed at all and uh uh driving uh at Spar which was at at that time the quickest circuit uh used for Grand Prix racing it was absolutely magic going around those really fast 160 mph curves it was marvelous Allison was driving the race of his life he' won his battle with

the Coopers of braam and salvadori and was now up to Fourth a great performance with the Lotus 12 Tony Brooks well in the lead exits L source to discover the that his gearbox is beginning to tighten as he crosses the line it goes he couldn't have completed another [Music] lap Mike Hawthorne comes up his Ferrari accelerating away from lasource towards the finish and his engine blows [Music] up then it's Stuart Lewis evans's turn in third place discovering as he takes lasource that his suspension is collapsed but he still finished third in fourth place across the

line is Cliff Allison in the Lotus one more LA and I would have won it yes cuz all the others that were ahead of me uh had terminal trouble for the French Grand Prix at Rams Chapman introduced the Van Wall lookalike Lotus 16 the space frame chassis was a again front engin powered by the 2.2 L centry climax the Lotus quadrant gearbox proved difficult to keep operational Keith Duckworth had joined the company to try and sort out problems with a gearbox which he did by introducing a motorcycle style positive stop mechanism which today would be

called sequential shift while en Chapman's strut suspension was used front and rear the Ferrari Dino though front engined with plenty of power was too heavy and had poor road holding and while the brm was perhaps one of the best front engine cars it was never properly developed so how did the Cooper maintain its advantage over Lotus I've been asked this question before and uh I was quite convinced in my own mind at that stage that Colin would certainly produce a world championship car the only snug that I could see was that uh pieces kept falling

off the car and and uh I figured that it was only a matter of time before something vital fell off and uh I fell off with it the big joke at the time was that if if you could have got Chapman to design the car and John Cooper to build it then you would have ended up with a world beater well in those days Colin said quite openly the easiest way to find out if a thing was uh the right strength was to build it too weak and if it broke then you built it a

little bit stronger but if you if you started off by building it very strong you never KN knew how far you could go in lightening it and so he it was all all very fine for him it uh he probably found out very quickly where the weak spots were but uh with rather detrimental effects as far as drivers were concerned the 16 made its British debut Vi at the British Grand Prix at silverston driven by Graham Hill and Alan Stacy Cliff Allison preferred to drive one of the older tws hathorne and Collins continued their battle

with moss and the Van Wall for the world championship Cooper was becoming more competitive with salvadori on the front row on the first lap Collins forced his way into the lead followed by Mars and Hawthorne while the little Lotus of Hill was well placed in the Midfield Hill and Bram had a tremendous battle swapping places regularly as the field passed the pits however Hill came into retire the gearbox was somewhat worn and so was Hill's [Music] seat next it was the turn of the gifted Alan Stacy having his first Grand Prix drive he too became

a retirement with overheating this amazing man drove in Grand Prix racing with one leg which many people didn't realize then it was Allison's turn who came in with no oil [Music] pressure while a brm is pushed away Chapman in the red shirt confers with his [Music] drivers out on the track hathorne is in second place Collins comes through to win the race while the teams plan the next event at the nober we all entered into the spirit of things but uh Graham hill was a quite a practical joker and uh leis Evans and uh Harry

shell Mike Hawthorne un unfortunately I was just while I while I was hesitating a bit there I was just realizing I was telling you all the ones that had unfortunately after us Peter got killed and uh and Mike uh he didn't drive around to the pitch he he he drove it off the C off the road and the report was that the clutch had gone but it was Mike's clut that had gone Peter Collin's accident cast a Paul over that season well it was terrible that cuz we were all great PS you say nowadays it's

uh it the thing that surprised me um particularly was I went to Monte Carlo and uh at the time when Prost uh Mansel were driving for Ferrari and there was a vast tent and in one corner there was Mansel with his little Clan around him and in the other corner there was Prost with his little Clan around him and uh they were obviously not on friendly terms anyway I doubt if they were even on speaking terms and that was quite contrary to anything I'd experienced when I was racing because uh we used to all joining

have a party all together you know the the whether you drove for Cooper or Lotus or anything you know it was great at the end of the year Cliff Allison made a decision to move on from Lotus as I previously stated I thought something was going to fall off that was going to kill me from Lotus to Ferrari must have been a culture shock it was absolutely marvelous and uh the the uh Ferrari in those days uh was quite a dictator dictator and uh what he said was law you know and uh I think as

long as you appreciated that and uh did as you were told as it were then you got on all right with him and fortunately I I never had any problems with Ferrari a lot of drivers have complained that they did have problems but uh I didn't well I always had a very good relationship with uh Colin and uh it was uh when when I went uh back racing again after I'd been to Ferrari um I met calling at at Silverstone and uh he he said he only wished that he could have produced a more competitive

car when I was driving for him in the uh 57 and 57 and8 years because uh he he appreciated that had I had a better car I'd have had a lot more success there's one thing to remember of course I don't think there's a Grand Prix car running today that doesn't have something on that Chapman brought out first by this time the Lotus 6 had been discontinued and its loss was keenly felt by Club Racers with limited funds Chapman said to work on its successor the Lotus 7 built with a club racer in mind the

basic design was displayed at the 1957 London Motor Show originally fitted with either the centry climax or the Ford engine some even had the twin cam 1500 Climax and were known as the Super 7 in 1973 Lotus decided to stop making the seven and they sold the design to gram ner of kataram car sales who had provided them with many sales of the car these cars today are little changed from the original Chapman design and they form one of the most successful and competitive single make race series in the world the versatility of the design

means that the cars can even take V8 engines that this basic design is still popular is a testament to Colin Chapman's Vision back to Grand Prix racing and at Monaco in 1959 the New 2 and 1/2 L engines were used the extra power and torque were giving problems with a gearbox again for Cooper and lotus lotus entered Hill and the American Pete lovely in Lotus 16s and they both started from the back of the grid the 16 in 1959 continued to be unreliable Sterling Moss proved to be the quickest in the Rob Walker Cooper followed

by Jack Bram in the works car when Moss retired with gearbox problems Jack Bram went into the lead followed by Tony Brooks in the Ferrari this was to be bram's first Grand Prix Victory while Lotus still wrestled with their gearbox problem in this island joined team lotus in the middle of 1959 at the Dutch Grand Prix my very first uh uh Grand Prix was zanot in 1959 with Team Lotus and uh uh I I managed to finish fourth which I was quite pleased about but that was in the year when lotuses were so very very

fragile it was very satisfying I'd had a good old dingdong with Bea and uh you know he was faster on the straight uh and uh I you know if I'd follow him closely for too long all my temperature started going up so then I'd have to drop back and let it uh you know cool off a bit and also I've got all this you know all this the exhaust fumes of I never forget you know all these exhaust fumes you know from this Ferrari blasting out it V12 smoke at me you know and uh but

finally be made a little bit of a mistake at one of the corners behind the pits there and uh so I managed to slip inside him and uh from then on you know I could make enough along the back uh all through the corners and he was never able to get back pass me on on the straet again so it was very satisfying to to uh to win that or to to to take that fourth place well I was so much a new boy and knowing that Graham had worked at Lotus you know when he

was uh working on gearboxes and things before he actually started driving for them um I just took whatever he said as being gospel and and uh and of course I was up highly chuffed to be there anyway I mean I thought it was you know it was like Christmas has come again at the end of 1959 there was nothing to choose between the practice times and race results of Graham Hill and inis Ireland Graham left Lotus at the end of the season to join brm why oh purely and simply because the cars were so fragile

and they kept break breaking down uh I hadn't done the full season having only started at zandvoort which was after monardo and uh I think I finished up with more points than gram um at the end of 59 uh the cars were desperately fragile and and Graham had just had enough of it uh and he'd been offered a very good drive at brm and uh to my mind quite rightly took it I mean in 59 I ran out of brakes four times and I don't mean they didn't work very well I mean I had none

like the the main oil line had sheared you know so the oil the you know when you put your foot on the floor the oil just went squirting out into the atmosphere things like that I mean Colin's idea of a grown prear was it should win the race and it and as it crossed the Finishing Line it should collapse in a heap of bits if it didn't do that it was built too strongly I mean that's very vaguely how Colin thought of a gr pre car but sadly you know invariably they fell to bits before

they got to the line I don't actually think any of the problems I had with lotus uh actually affected my driving because um uh that may mean that I'm intensely thick I don't know but um I always felt that as long as you knew what and understood what the problem had been then it shouldn't have any effect on you um it was the unknown uh you know something that you didn't understand which would be likely to leave you with a doubt in your mind and I can remember Master Gregory saying look you ought to get

out of lotus but you know cuz you know Colin will kill you um and but I couldn't see that of course and Colin was the one who'd given me my chance in Grand Pre racing and of course I'd driven Lotus 11s and uh Formula 2 uh in the year before and uh so I I stuck to I stuck to Colin Chapman and of course from being a very much a new boy all of a sudden for 1960 I was number one these troubled Beginnings Lotus achieved success with Sterling Moss winning their first Grand Prix at

Monaco in 1960 for Rob Walker's team in this Ireland won team lotus's first Grand Prix the US in 1961 his reward was to be sacked and replaced with Jim Clark the Scott went on to win the 1963 and 65 World Championships and the Indianapolis 500 in 1965 Colin Chapman introduced the monoco Lotus 25 and in 1967 the Lotus 49 with Ford's dfv engine Jim Clark died in 1968 and gram Hill who had returned in ' 67 won the World Championship Yan rent won the 1970 title but lost his life in the process and Emerson for

theal won in 1972 the final world championship was with another Chapman Le Revolution ground effect Mario andreti LED home his teammate Ronnie Peterson in 1978 on the sports car side Lotus became a major manufacturer pioneering fiberglass construction from the Lotus Elite followed by the Alan the Europa and into the 1970s with the aclat Exel and the long running espri Lotus ownership was transferred through many hands over the years and is now controlled by Malaysia's proton company the Elise is more popular than ever and the Seven as made by caterin with other replicas have a wide

Market Consulting work became a major part of the Lotus Business coland Chapman died in December 1982 the Grand Prix team soldiered on taking its last win with Erton CER in 1987 at Detroit before closing down in 1994 while the Grand Prix team has gone the Lotus name lives on with sporty road cars and a Heritage of revolutionary racing cars that all raced through time to [Music] [Music]