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Fourth Quarter 2003 Busy in the Workshop An impressive 28 cars participated in the last round of the TGP Championship at Estoril. Unfortunately the weather was poor but the event was well supported by other categories so there was plenty to entertain. Abba Kogan switched his Patronship from 101/2 to 91/8 in order to get a taste of ground effect prior to next season. He acquitted himself very well and looked particularly smooth and precise in the wet. In the race he was up to 11th place before an engine problem on the last lap dropped him to 14th. Dan qualified well, made a great start to be 6th into the first corner before being assaulted from behind by Mike Whatley half way round the first lap. The marshals towed him to behind the barrier before a bit of bulldog spirit saw Dan bump starting the car along a service road and rejoining. Despite some damage he managed 11th fastest race lap but was not classified. With racing over our attention has turned to winter workshop activities including overhauls and restorations. Kevin Smith has made good progress on the restoration of 101/1 and hopes to have it finished in time for Christmas in case anyone wants to get festive by taking advantage of our cars for sale section. Nick Yallop and Lee Nicol have been making good use of our recently commissioned composite facility. In particular they have created new bodywork for a customer’s type 80, the components of which are extraordinarily complicated. Chris Dinnage is investigating the restoration of our prototype 12 chassis that was displayed at the 1956 London Motor Show as the first Lotus monoposto design. It is a great piece of Team Lotus history and we thought it would be a nice way to commemorate 50 years of Team Lotus in 2004 (as well as the Hethel event; see 50 years section). We are very excited that the new owner of the type 21 chassis 933 has chosen to have Classic Team Lotus look after his special car. Innes Ireland drove chassis 933 to victory in the 1961 US GP at Watkins Glen to record the first Team Lotus Grand Prix win. Hopefully it will be invited to participate in the Grand Prix de Monaco Historique 2004, along with our types 49 and 72. At the end of November we were pleased to send eight cars from the Classic Collection over to Utrecht for the Speed & Design Show. The organisers, namely Arjen, Tom & Bob, are self confessed Lotus fans and they thought it would be nice to show the 70,000 visitors some of the most exciting Team Lotus F1 cars. Nick and Steve took four cars in the Classic Team Lotus transporter and attended throughout the four days. In the company of Johnny Herbert, Clive Chapman opened the show in front of 100 or so Club Lotus Holland members. The cars looked fantastic and a great time was had by all. Nick and Steve hard(ly) at work on the Classic Team Lotus display at the Speed & Design Show in Utrecht. The film crew said they wanted to make an artistic tribute to Dutch/Anglo relations. Before we knew it Steve and Nick were whisked off to Amsterdam and have said nothing about it since. We were delighted to welcome a visit by representatives of the Senna Foundation. They were on a worldwide fact finding tour in preparation for organising a number of activities to remember Ayrton in 2004, 10 years after he lost his life. We hope that our type 97T (Ayrton’s first GP win) and type 99T (Ayrton’s first Monaco win) will be able to participate in some way. On a sombre but proud note representatives of Classic Team Lotus attended the Memorial Service for Tony Rudd held at Wymondham Abbey. The excellent turnout combined with the impressive setting to create an impressive occasion. A wonderful speech by Sir Jackie Stewart and a moving sermon by Canon Lionel Webber were followed by the broadcast of the Nick Mason recording of his BRM at full chat. The congregation, including a lot of Team Lotus representatives, went on to Ketteringham Hall for an opportunity to share many happy memories of Tony. We are looking forward to 2004 and the next season. Draft Championship calendars are evolving constantly but we thought it would be helpful to provide you with the story so far within the Racing Calendar section of the website. Safe to say we will be running Dan Collins and Tony Hancock in TGP with a third car likely on occasions. We hope to participate in some FORCE races and possibly some BOSS events. Fingers crossed for Monaco! It is likely that we will display a type 91 on the TGP stand at the Autosport International Racing Car Show. We will have a stand at the new International Historic Motorsport Show at Stoneleigh on the 20th to the 22nd February. We would be pleased to see you there. If you cannot wait until then you might consider taking advantage of the Works Tour opportunity detailed elsewhere within this website. We have hosted a number of tours this autumn. They have proved to be fun for visitors and hosts alike. Just to let you know it is not all work and no play we thought you would like to see us having fun (?) bowling in the run up to Christmas. We are pleased to take this opportunity to send season’s greetings to all our readers. Third Quarter 2003 A Memorable Summer We kicked off the third quarter in style with a Works attendance at the Royal Norfolk Show Ball. We provided the types 49 and 97T along with various car parts to help the organisers with the motor sport theme and thought our presence would complete the effect. We fired up the 49 to announce that dinner was served. The same weekend we gave the 97T its first proper run since restoration when it participated in the Senna Tribute event at Donington. Evidently Sam Hancock was thrilled to drive the car and raved about its handling and performance. It was fabulous to see the car back on track after 18 years. Sadly the engine failed on the very last lap. Happily Renault Sport has the rebuild underway. The Renault people are as keen as we are to see this famous Senna Lotus being shown off. The A1 Ring played host to the fourth round of the TGP Championship. It was an emotional return to the circuit at which Elio raced 91/8 to his first win and Colin Chapman’s last. A photo call on the finish line recaptured the moment when Elio beat Rosberg’s Williams (also racing in TGP) by a mere 5/1000ths of a second. Unfortunately the 91/8 Patron, Nico Bindels, experienced a very rare input shaft failure and could not race. Dan Collins qualified and finished ninth out of a healthy 23 starters. Ford celebrated 100 years at the Goodwood Festival of Speed and asked us to take down our types 49, 72 and 79. Jackie Oliver enjoyed reacquainting himself with the 49 and sharing some memories with CTL personnel. Dan did the honours in the 72, complete with trademark helmet ears and slight indiscretion at turn 3 (just for the fans..?). Tony Hancock, the new Patron of our type 88B, drove the 79 for his debut on the hill having previously attended every Festival as a spectator. Having suggested he did not expect to get out of second he promptly lit up the tyres at the Start and was in third before the first corner. With Jackie Oliver busy driving various cars we were pleased to have the opportunity to give Sam Hancock and Johannes Willenpart a run each in the 49. A great weekend with able assistance from Paul Stevens and Uncle Henry. Tony Hancock shook down our 88B/1 at Hethel in preparation for a Donington test. A magic moment especially for Kevin Smith who did a lot of the restoration work. The Donington test was a success with Tony settling in well to his first taste of F1. The twin chassis design of the 88B is unique and radical so in a way it is ideal that the driver has no preconceptions based on previous experience. We are pleased to introduce another new customer, Abba Kogan, who has become Patron of our type 101 chassis 2 that has just been restored by Ralph Hudston, an original mechanic on this 1989 ex Piquet car. After a successful Hethel shakedown (by James Denty) we took the car to Donington for Abba’s first drive, in the company of Dan Collins and Malcolm Ricketts (32B). As an experienced historic racer in a wide range of cars, Abba did very well, despite being somewhat cramped. The highlight of a nearly continuous stream of visitors from Lotus Cars was the Board of Norwich City Football Club. The mighty Canaries (colours yellow & green) are now sponsored by Proton with the Lotus logo appearing on the away strip of the first division team. Foremost amongst the Board is the Cookery writer and TV star, Delia Smith. Delia was charming and was interested to see the old racing cars, some of which she recalled from childhood visits to Brands Hatch. Delia went away saying that if ever we wanted tickets we should get in touch. Fingers crossed for Manchester United in the Cup... After a 23 year wait we were thrilled to give 88B/1 its first ever race at the Donington TGP round. Tony qualified a creditable 11th, just behind team mate Dan Collins. The hottest ever day in England was also the wettest ever race at Donington with a cloudburst just before the start. Dan was caught out at the start and clipped the pit wall to retire. Tony pressed on to finish sixth in a two part race. We were pleased to welcome Kazuhiro Takeda, President of LCI Limited, the new distributor for Lotus Cars in Japan. Lotus Cars intends to create a special 99T version of the Elise for Japan so it was nice to have the opportunity of introducing Classic Team Lotus to Mr Takeda and being involved with the 99T styling discussions. Malcolm Ricketts raced the 32B in the Gold Cup at Oulton Park, qualifying well and nearly taking the lead at the start. The 32B really is a beautiful car and was the star of the Paddock (as far as we are concerned). Clive Chapman, accompanied by Eddie Dennis, was honoured to participate in the unveiling of a wonderful monument to Ronnie Peterson in his home town of Orebro, Sweden. We had hosted the sculptor during his research and were pleased to lend our 72/9 to be part of an excellent Peterson exhibition in the Town’s museum. The event was made particularly special by the attendance of the lovely Nina Peterson, Ronnie’s daughter. Chris Dinnage took 101/2 to Spa for Abba Kogan to race it for the first time (having tested the car at Spa a couple of weeks earlier). The 101 proved competitive throughout the 1989 season except at Spa where Piquet and Nakajima failed to qualify after a disastrous practice. Therefore Abba laid a ghost to rest when he brought the car home in eighth overall and first in class. Coincidentally Nelson Piquet was in attendance to see his son racing in F3. Chris and Ralph enjoyed catching up with him and Abba was thrilled when Nelson spent some time reminiscing with him about the car. The Goodwood Revival is the most glorious event and Junro Nishida (type 30) and Malcolm Ricketts were pleased to have been invited again. The weather was great and the cars ran well, with Junro going three seconds quicker than last year. Clive Chapman attended with his wife, Jane, and children Sophie, Arthur and Magnus all decked out in fifties gear. Magnus took great delight in marching up to Johnny English (Rowan Atkinson to you and me) and demanding to know the whereabouts of his film sidekick ‘Boff’. Rowan Atkinson politely explained that as a result of their adventures Boff could no longer cope with loud noise. The last race of a busy quarter was the Magny Cours TGP. Dan and Tony qualified 8th and 10th respectively and were confident of making progress in the race. This they did, with Dan getting up to fifth before his team mate got past him en route to fourth. Sadly Tony’s exhaust failed forcing retirement. Dan nearly got fourth but a fading clutch hampered his efforts. In the fourth quarter we are looking forward to the final TGP race at Estoril. Apparently 36 F1 cars are entered. Should be a great end to the season. Second Quarter 2003 Still crazy, after all these years! Once again the race season arrived and everything gets hectic. It is not as if we do not know it is coming and we know that we can cope but it never loses its capacity to surprise. The TGP Championship kicked off in the warmth of Jarama, Madrid. This was Nico’s first race as Patron of our 91/8 and he quickly got to grips with the ground effect handling even to the point of out qualifying Dan Collins in his 91/10. The Classic Team Lotus pit garage and transporter looked great and it was lovely to have the two type 91s together. Both drivers enjoyed a good race with plenty of dicing. Nico finished in the points in 6th and Dan came 8th. In the spirit of goodwill Classic Team Lotus always makes a point of getting to know the locals whenever the opportunity arises…. Back at base we welcomed more groups of Heritage Elise owners for their workshop tours and photographs with their car alongside the relevant Team Lotus racing type. The next race was Spa TGP at the beginning of May. Dan did really very well to qualify 6th with Nico back in 14th. Spa is Nico’s home track so clearly he had some way to go before making full use of the ground effect in the fast corners. Dan finished 5th, not far behind the podium finishers, and Nico fought his way up to come 10th. Chris Dinnage dashed back to Donington to run Jim Bennett for his first race in his type 76 the next day. Bob Dance and Lee had run Jim in qualifying on Sunday and Jim had a steady drive to finish 14th in the first of a double header. Jim enjoyed the second race much more and he put in a good performance to come 8th. Not only was this Jim’s first F1 race but significantly it was the first time a type 76 had finished an F1 race! Next up was Monza where we ran Dan and Nico and Junro Nishida in his type 77 plus Sean Walker in his Elan 26R. A busy weekend. Unfortunately Junro’s engine blew in Saturday morning qualifying and Eddie Dennis, with the team again for this three F1 car effort, embarked on a very complicated engine change that kept us busy until late into the night. A fuel metering problem in Sunday morning warm-up required generous assistance by Dick Langford of Langford Performance Engines to be ready for the race. 28 cars lined up at the start (Dan 12th, Junro 13th, Nico 16th) for what proved to be a really exciting battle throughout the field. We were delighted to get all three cars in the top 10 with Dan 6th, Nico 9th and Junro 10th. Sean Walker kept us entertained with two stirring drives in his 26R. In the second race he made up 15 places on the first lap and came second, threatening the winner at the end. Nico on the Monza grid in the Classic Team Lotus type 91 chassis 8 ready to go, attended by no.1 mechanic Ralph Hudston and ‘Immaculate’ Mike Impson. Elio de Angelis raced 91/8 at Monza in the 1982 Italian Grand Prix. Nurburgring saw us back to just two cars with Dan and Nico. Having been towards the top of the timesheet for most of practice, Dan was somewhat disappointed with qualifying 8th while Nico did well to line up just behind him. Our two drivers enjoyed a great dice throughout the race and thankfully observde the golden rule of not hitting your team mate. Eventually Nico came out ahead of Dan in 8th place. As we approach the end of the quarter we are looking forward to giving our type 97T/2 (Ayrton’s 1985 Estoril winning car) its first public run since being restored to running condition. The Ayrton Senna Tribute Meeting at Donington is the perfect venue and we are pleased to have Sam Hancock (son of type 88B/1 Patron, Anthony Hancock) doing the honours, fresh from a successful Hethel shakedown. In the workshop we are busy finishing off 88B/1 which we hope to test at the end of July. A potential Patron for 101/2 means we are endeavouring to have it ready in time for the same Donington test day. Also we must prepare 79/3 for the Festival of Speed at which it will be driven by Anthony Hancock. Model Licensing is going well with the prospect of numerous new models coming out during this year. In particular we have just received the prototype of the 1/18th scale type 38 by Carousel 1. It is really beautiful and should prove very popular. First Quarter Review 2003 Classic Team Lotus is looking forward to a very busy season of historic F1 racing all over Europe. In order to cope we are delighted to welcome back Chris Dinnage from Lotus Motorsport. Chris started at Team Lotus in 1982 and became a number one mechanic on the F1 team before joining Classic Team Lotus in 1993. As Team Manager Chris is responsible for race shop and competition activities. Once again the Thoroughbred Grand Prix Championship for seventies and eighties F1 cars will be our principle focus. We are running Dan Collins in his type 91 and new customer Nico Bindels from Luxembourg who has become Patron of our 1982 Austrian GP winning type 91. Both drivers enjoyed a successful pre season test at Donington. Junro Nishida in his 1976 type 77 will join them for Monza and Estoril. American Jim Bennett will realise a dream when he races his type 76 for the first time. Jackie Oliver, 1968 Works driver and founder of the Arrows F1 team, has been reunited with our type 49B at the press day for the Goodwood Festival of Speed. The 49B is the subject of this year’s event poster (last year it was the type 98T; thank you Goodwood!). It is bound to be a star of the show along with our types 72 and 79 that Lord March has invited to be part of the 100 years of Ford celebrations. The support generated by the success of the Heritage Elise initiative by Lotus Cars has resulted in our being able to reinvigorate the restoration programme of a number of cars in the Classic Collection. Foremost is the revolutionary twin chassis type 88 for which we hope we can attract a Patron driver so that it will be back on track later this season. We are continuing to welcome the Heritage Elise owners to the workshop and enjoy giving them a special insight into Team Lotus history, especially as it relates to their type Elise. The type 49 version is bound to be popular so we are anticipating a lot of visitors (all OLC members, no doubt) over the coming weeks. 2003 Classic Team Lotus Calendar Jarama Spain 13/04 Spa Belgium 04/05 Monza Italy 25/05 Nurburgring Germany 15/06 A1 Ring Austria 29/06 Goodwood Festival 13/07 Donington   10/08 Oulton Park Gold Cup 24/08 Goodwood Revival 07/09 Magny Cours France 21/09 Estoril Portugal 26/10 Note: Bold denotes non TGP