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Dave
Walker in his Lotus 69 on his way to victory
at Monaco in 1971. |
One of the most famous names in motor racing history, the Lotus story is too long to be told in any great detail here. Founded by Colin Chapman in January 1952, Lotus Engineering Company together with Team Lotus (the racing team founded in 1954) soon gained a reputation for brilliant and often innovative engineering. Chapman himself was a more than competent racing driver, he very nearly drove in F1, and he did design work for Vanwall and BRM before his Lotus days. It wasn't surprising therefore that Lotus soon became involved in Grand Prix racing and the first Lotus F1 race was at Silverstone in 1958 with updated type 12 F2 cars. Their first real success was when Chapman followed the Cooper route and put the engine in the rear for the type 18 and Stirling Moss would win the first Lotus GP victory at Monaco. For the next 20 years Lotus would produce a string of often beautiful, frequently fragile but usually competitive F1 cars, some highlights would be the 25 and 33 with Jim Clark, the 49 with Clark again and Graham Hill, the 72 and Jochen Rindt, the 79 with Mario Andretti and Ronnie Peterson.
Sadly Colin Chapman
died in 1982 and much of the life in Lotus went with him, good cars were
still made and success was still there, especially when Ayrton Senna was
driving but by the end of the 80's things were not looking rosy and before
long the Lotus name would leave the world of F1 racing although the name
lives on it the Lotus road cars.
Although F1 was almost always the raison d'être behind Lotus,
cars were often built for other formulae especially F2 and F3 where the
were often very successful.
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The first F3
Lotus was the 31 which was basically a minor rework of the 1962
F Junior 22. The chassis was a spaceframe of round and square tubing
with a central bulkhead doubling as the dashboard. Front suspension
is via unequal length double wishbones and outboard springs/dampers
and an anti-roll bar. At the rear it used a reversed lower wishbone
and a top link, twin parallel radius rods with outboard springs
and dampers and an anti-roll bar. Magnesium uprights were used at
the rear with proprietary units at the front. The 13 inch wheels
were cast magnesium although pressed steel Lotus Elan types were
found on early models. A Hewland Mk6 gearbox was used, again earlier
models were offered with a modified VW or Renault box. Despite the success of Lotus in F Junior there were only 12 cars built. In the year of Jackie Stewart and the Tyrrell-Coopers the 31 was very much an also ran with just one win for John Fenning at a minor Silverstone round. |
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The 41 was the
result of a major rethink by Lotus, F3 was being dominated by teams
such as Brabham which used a spaceframe for their cars. Lotus had
gone for the more sophisticated monocoque approach with the 35 but
it hadn't worked and further customers didn't like the expense and
complexity of repairing a monocoque. So the 41 was born, it was
in effect an evolved version of the 22/31 spaceframe design, it
was stiffened with sheet steel paneling around the pedal box and
the undertray. There were front and rear stressed steel bulkheads,
the rear one was hollow and was also the oil catch-tank. Solid engine
and gearbox mounts were used to help with the rigidity of the whole
unit. Suspension was wide track with double wishbones at the front
set up with anti-dive with outboard springs and dampers. The rear
consisted of reversed lower wishbones, top links, un-parallel radius
rods and outboard springs/dampers. Wheels were 13 inch 6-spoke cast-magnesium with 7 inch rims at the front, 9 inch at the rear
and 10.5 inch Girling discs were employed front and rear. Results were at best reasonable, Piers Courage did well and won 5 races and took the French Craven 'A' Championship, his team mate Roy Pike also scored a couple of victories. In the UK Jackie Oliver took some wins and newcomers Derek Bell and Mo Nunn showed well but once again, compared to Brabham especially, first places were few and far between. |
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A "new"
car appeared for 1968, the 41X, Lotus took a 41C and modified the
front suspension with Lotus 47 (the competition version of the Europa
road car) uprights and wheels. In addition a dramatic (for the time)
wedge shaped body was fitted, it had a low, wide nose and radiator
inlet, the body rising at a constant angle to the rear of the cockpit.
A flat engine cover with a slanted undercut tail completed the design.
As the season progressed various aerodynamic adjustments were made
including a tall rear wing in imitation of its F1 relatives. |
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An entirely
new design for 1969, the Dave Baldwin designed 59. It was a dual
purpose F2/F3 spaceframe chassis composed of square tubing. Suspension
was the familiar double wishbone, outboard springs and dampers at
the front with top link, reversed lower wishbone and twin radius
rods at the rear. Triumph Herald uprights were used at the front
with cast-magnesium units the rear. Wheels were cast magnesium with
a knock-on centre-lock fitting. The oil tank, pump, cooler and catch-tank
were all sited over the Hewland gearbox. The 59 first appeared at the Brands Hatch Boxing Day meeting, actually the 27th December 1967. After overcoming some early season problems with spring rates and the oil system the car proved a success, its chunky body hampered it a little on fast circuits but it had a reputation for putting the power down very well. Most successful driver was an up-and-coming young Brazilian named Emerson Fittipaldi, a string of nine wins saw him take the UK Lombard Championship. |
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The 59 continued unchanged into 1970 but part way through the year the nose from the F2 69 was adopted and the car in this configuration was known a the 59A. Results continued to be very good, in the UK Carlos Pace took the Forward Trust Championship and the 59 won 14 National and Club races. On the Continent the Liptons Tea team of Freddy Kottulinsky and Sten Axelsson took four good wins between them. |
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The Lotus 69 was designed by Dave Baldwin for use in F2, F3, F Ford and FB/ Atlantic. In F3 guise the 69 had a complex square tube space frame chassis, front suspension was by wishbones with outboard springs and dampers. Rear suspension was by a reversed lower wishbone, top link and twin radius rods. The 69 was hugely successful in F3 with works driver Australian Dave Walker with his Novamotor twin-cam Ford powered car winning no less than 25 races out of 32 entered. |
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According
to Lotus publicists the 73 was the F3 answer to the F1 World Championship
winning 72. It was built purely for use as a works car and was officially
designated a "John Player Special". Early design work
was by 72 designer Maurice Phillippe before he left Lotus and it
was originally intended to be a F2 car. The design was finalised
by Dave Baldwin and Martin Wade. Like its F1 big brother the 73
had a bathtub monocoque with the engine acting as a stressed member
attached via a tubular framework. At the front a tubular sub frame
carried the rack and pinion steering, inboard front brakes, rising
rate suspension with fabricated double wishbones with outboard coil
springs and dampers. Rear suspension was via a single upper link,
twin parallel lower links and twin radius rods, the whole design
was based on the 59/69 series. Coil springs/dampers were outboard,
brakes inboard. |
| Drivers | (N.B. Race reports in the early sixties often didn't specify the chassis type so details are necessarily uncertain) |
| 1964 | 31 27 22 20/22 20 18 ? |
| 1965 | 35 34 32 31 27 22 20/22 20 18 ? |
| 1966 | 41 35 32 31 27 22 20 18 ? |
| 1967 | 41C 41
(some may be the 41C chassis) 35 32 31 27 22 20 18 ? |
| 1968 |
59 51 41X 41
(some
may be the 41C chassis) 35 22 20 ? |
| 1969 |
59B 59 51 41B 41 35 |
| 1970 |
59A 59 41B 41 35 ? |
1971 |
69 59A ? |
| 1972 | 73 Tony Trimmer, Bernard Vermilio, 69 Ross Ambrose, Carlo Breidenstein, Alan Edgar, Harald Ertl, Roger Keele, Günter Kölmel, Freddy Link, Lella Lombardi, Barrie Maskell, Ernesto Neves, Bruno Pescia, Bengt Radmyr, Gerhard Witti, Geddes Yeates. |
| 1973 | 69 Malcolm Bohm, Carlo Breidenstein, Günter Kölmel, Gaudenzio Mantova, Klaus Scholtyssek. |
| 1974 | 69 Carlo Breidenstein, Günter Kölmel. |
| 1975 |
73B ?
(Listed as a Lotus 3) |
