Antony Bruce Colin Chapman was a brilliant and special student at the School for Engineers in London. Next to his studies he started in the occasion cars selling business. One of his cars was an antique Austin Seven. This became the base for his own modified Austin, the first Lotus MKI in 1948. He raced the car, with some success, in local trials and on the circuit.
Colin Chapman started his own company ‘Lotus Engineering Company Ltd’ in 1952; it was located in Tottenham Lane, Horsney. After a service at the RAF he accepted working as an engineer for the British Aluminium Company. In his spare time he created the MKII in 1950 and later a MKIII. With the last car he won the Formula 750 championship in 1951.
The first real true Lotus came in 1954. The MKVIII had a tube-frame chassis and an 1500 cc MG engine. The car had an aerodynamic bodywork, created by a certain Frank Costin. His previous job was at the De Haviland airplane factory. His brother Mike Costin had also some good qualities and became technical director at Lotus. Colin Chapman immediately won a race with this small car during the 1954 British GP against Cooper and Kieft cars.
A year later, he made a new sportscar, the Lotus MKIX. As he was an enthusiastic young constructor, he thought that the Le Mans race would without a doubt the true test of his sports car. Success would pave the way for sales of the planned production sports cars as well as other pure competition cars. After a first outing in Sebring ( Samuelson/Scott, accident), he entered the MKIX with a 4 cylinder Coventry Climax 1100cc engine in the 24h race in 1955 and was accepted by the ACO. Driving duties would be shared by LeMans-Jaguar winner Ron Flockhart and Colin Chapman himself.
The team was off to Dover for the ferry. The team was Colin, his wife Hazel, Mike Costin, John Standen, Peter Mayes and Peter Jopp as reserve driver.
The Lotus had a good start of the race and was leading in his class. Then Colin lost the car at Arnage. He got out of the sand bank and started to drive his way up. And again, he was out and over the sandbank at Arnage. Colin reversed himself out of it without awaiting direction from course marshals. The race direction disqualified him for that. In fairness, the officials were quite justified for this action, especially when you consider the terrible Levegh accident earlier in the event, which killed many spectators.
With the construction of the Lotus Eleven, Chapman really got his Lotus branch on the racing-map. The ACO had made now specific rules for the cockpit and the frontwindow screen. Lotus decided to alter the chassis in the driver's compartment to meet the minimum cockpit width specifications. The cars themselves were no wider, but the frame in the cockpit was moved laterally about six inches making it much roomier. By widening the chassis the upper arm for the rear suspension was "bent" and the pivot was not parallel to the lower one, as it was on the conventional Eleven. Wider aluminium shelled bucket seats were installed. The doors were also cut down so they could not affect the cockpit width. Dual driving lights, front brake ducts, a tallish V shaped full width windscreen, a single wiper, dual SU electric fuel pumps and large centred fuel tank were all unique to the 1956 Le Mans cars. They did not have head fairings.
Lotus entered three cars for the race, the #32 featured a 1500 cc FWB with an Austin gearbox, while the # 35 and #36 had Coventry Climax FWA powerplants.
Chapman shared the #32( chassis 212,Licence: 9EHX) with American Herbert MacKay-Frase. They kept third place in the cat.1500 behind two Porsche 550A. During the night, it started to rain and both drivers found it freezing cold. But they kept going and early in the morning they were up to second after the Porsche had failed. Unfortunately, the engine died after 20 hours of racing.
The #35 (chassis 211) was driven by Cliff Allison and Keith Hall. On Sunday morning, Cliff hit a dog on the Mulsanne straight and was out; the car was badly damaged. The #36 ( chassis 210) finished seventh overall. Reg Bicknell-Peter Jopp had a long battle with the Cooper T39 and won also the class 750-1100cc.
It was a long party that night at Auberge Saint Nicolas, the place where Lotus stayed.
The little car manufacturer Lotus was getting bigger and got international recognition. The production of Lotus Seven was in full swing. Lotus was also getting active in the Formula 2. The rule book preferred 1500 c engines, so Lotus came up with his first single-seater: the Lotus 12.
Colin Chapman begun to see things big.
He entered for le Mans five cars, slightly modified aerodynamically Eleven ‘serie 2’. He was himself to involved in his business, so he stopped his active driving career. He took on board a young mechanic and test driver: Graham Hill.
.jpg)
The official # 37 (chassis 322, 9EHX, see photo above) had an engine breakdown during the training and was beyond repair. There were three other Team Lotus entered cars. The # 55 (chassis 323, XAR 11) had a FWC 745 cc engine specially made by Coventry Climax aiming for the ‘Indice de Performance’. Cliff Allison and Keith Hall were the drivers. It was indeed this little car that outperformed the French opposition for the Indice. They finished 14th with 20 laps in front of the first DBN Panhard HBR. The organisation was not amused! The other official tam car was the #62 (chassis 324, DEC 494) for Herbert MacKay-Fraser and Jay Chamberlain. They had a perfect race, took P9 and the 1100 class win.
The other two Lotus seven were private entries. Robert Walshaw and John Dalton drove the #42 (chassis 321, UDV 809) and local French drivers Andre Héchard and Roger Masson the #41(chassis 320, YAR527). The #42 ran also without problems and finished 13th. The true hero however was this French car. It would have retired, when Masson ran out of fuel on the Mulsanne straight. But Masson pushed the car to the pits, naked torso and on his socks. They finished P16.
Again it would be a long night at Auberge Saint Nicolas!
Colin Chapman developed his first F1 car(Lotus 16), the Lotus 15 as an endurance car and started the production of his first GT, the Lotus Elite. This car was presented at the earl’s Court Motor show in London in 1957. It featured the new Coventry Climax engine, the FEW:1216 cc, 72 pK at 6100 revs and only one carburettor. In the meantime, the Seven was selling like bread.
For the 24 h Le Mans, there were now six Lotus cars presented at the scrutineering.
Team Lotus entered four cars in green livery: two new type-15 with a Coventry Climax engine, slightly angled in order to reduce the height of the front bonnet. The top car had a 2l Climax 160 pk twin cam engine and a special designed sequential gearbox. This #26 (chassis 608)was for Cliff Allison and Graham Hill. The other 15, #35 (chassis 607) was driven by Jay Chamberlain and Pete Lovely. The other team car was the Lotus Eleven # 38, 1100 cc (chassis 513) for Innes Ireland and Mike Taylor and the 744cc engine #55 for Alan Stacey and Tom Dickson. They had an engine breakdown in the training and had to start the race with an old FWC engine.
The rest were private entries. The old Eleven (#39, chassis 515) was entered by Car exchange ltd for the boss Bill Frost and Bob Hicks and the other Eleven 750 FWMA (#65, chassis 519, 4110DP76) was bought by journalist Gerard Crombac and entered by Equipe Lotus France. He put the 1957 drivers Roger Masson and Andre Hechard in it.
The race was a disaster for Team Lotus. After three laps, the #26 was out with engine trouble and the #35 ended his race out of track after 39 laps. The #38 covered 200 laps; Taylor making a mistake in the rain and he could not get the car out of the sand. The #55 was not classified, covering not enough distance; Tom Dickson also had lengthy troubles getting the car back on track after a spin. The private cars also ended their race early, the French car after 19 laps and the English car after 28 laps.
Lotus now had a new factory at Cheshunt. The production of the Lotus Elite would be increased at the end of the year and the Lotus Seven production was still booming.
So it would be Le Mans again. Team Lotus entered three cars: one lotus 15 (#30, 2495 cc version) for Graham Hill and Derek Jolly, and two new Lotus 17 (750cc, only 387 kg.), a lighter version of the 15 thanks to Len Terry. They were entered by Lotus for Alan Stacey- Keith Green(#53) and a car for Mike Taylor and Jonathen Sieff (#54). There were also three Lotus Elite: from Car Exchange ltd, the #41 (chassis 1016, WUU2) was for Peter Lumsden and Peter Riley; the Border Reivers car (#42, chassis 1038) was for debutant Jim Clark and John Whitmore; the red coloured Elite from Gerard Crombac/ Equipe Los Amigos (#38, chassis 1007) was driven by Jean-Claude Vidilles and Jean- Francois Malle. The #58 from J.Stoope (chassis 1037) did not participate; he had an accident on the road coming from the training sessions.
The #5 from Taylor-Sieff retired in the fourth hour (distributor), the #30 retired in hour 10, but the #53 from Keith Green worked his way up to P14 and was in close contest with Porsche in the ‘Indice de performances’. A broken driveshaft stopped his race, but the ACO recorded a lap time 4’36”6, which was phenomenal for such a small car. The Elites saved the race. The #41 finished P8 and won the class 1500, rookie Jim Clarck finished P10. The Los Amigos car had an overheated engine, which put the car on fire during the night.
This time five Elites were registered for Le Mans. Team Lotus entered three cars. John Wagstaff - Tony March on the #41 (chassis 1027), David Buxton – William Allen drove in the #42 (chassis 1021) and a larger Elite with a Coventry engine 2l for Mike Taylor and Jonathan Sieff (#31, chassis 1255).
In the weekend before the race at Spa, Mike had and accident. Colin Chapman arranged a replacement: Alan Stacey. Unfortunally, Alan had a fatal accident in his Lotus 18 at Spa. Innes Ireland and Sir John Whitmore would come to rescue, but they didn’t have the heart to race again with their friend being dead. They gave forfeit.
Whitmore had an extra reason to not wanting to race. In the practice session, his team mate Christopher Martyn had a fatal accident crashing his #62 Elite against a tree.
There were also two privateers: Sir Gawaine Baillie was joined by Mike Parkes (#43, chassis 1125) and a French car for Roger Masson and Claude Laurent (#44, chasis 1246, 24KC75). This car finished 13th overall, 6th in the GT category and 1st in the 1151-1300cc class, whilst the Wagstaff/Marsh car was 14th on distance, winning the Thermal Efficiency, coming 12th in the Index of Performance, 7th in the GT category and 2nd in the 1300cc class. The other Elites were out.
There was a Team Elite constructed and run by David Buxton, a Lotus dealer from Derbyshire, with the support and sponsorship from Lotus Engineering. The manager: Stanley Chapman (father of). Two white coloured with green striping Elites were entered for William Allen and Trevor Taylor (#38) and Jesse Wyllie and Clive Hunt (#39).
The others were private entries. Ecurie Edger had a blue with red striping Elite for Bernard Kosselek and Pierre Messenez (#40, 118LF75), again Team Los Amigos for Jean-Francois Malle and Robin Carnegie (#41) and a curious light green 750cc with a noisy Coventry Climax FWMC engine with four carburettors for the Bob Gibson-Jarvie’s UDT Laystall Racing Team with drivers Cliff Allison and Mike McKee (#51, 1245W75).
Three of these Lotus Elite did not see the finish. After 68 laps, the Los Amigos car retired and only a few laps later the #51 with an oil pump failure when leading the Index of Performance. The #39 car ran 193 laps when the engine overheated.
The two finishers were the works Allen/ Taylor car winning the 1001-1300cc class and were 12th overall and the French car of Kosselek/ Massenez was just one lap and one place behind (and second in the index of thermal efficiency).
Team Elite was there again with two cars. David Hobbs and Frank Gardner shared the #44 (chassis 1678) and Clive Hunt-Jesse Wyllie were there for the #45( chassis 1792).
But this LeMans-event has a history because of the clash between Colin Chapman and the ACO. Chapman entered his new Lotus 23 with the small Twin Cam engine of 1500cc in the category ‘Experimental’. This car in the hands of Jim Clark made a fool of all V6 and V12 engines in the 1000 km Nürburgring ( before he got delayed). The #47 Lotus had a 1000 cc engine to aim for victory in the ‘Index of Performance’ driven by two F1 pilots, Jim Clark and Trevor Taylor. The other was the UDT Laystall from last year for Les Leston and Tony Shells. Both car had a strange look because of the required front window dimensions. They were not allowed even for the scrutineering. Insufficient ground clearance, an illegal oversized fuel cell, non- conventional fixation of the wheels ( four bolts in the front and six at the back). The team tried to fix it, but the next day they remained excluded, because the 4-stud location still missed two bolts; six said the rulebook. Image the scene. A F1 team excluded because of two missing bolts. Colin Chapman flew together with Frank Costin from London, to plead his case. He even offered a stress test on the part in question. But the scrutineers said “no”: the two Lotus 23 could not take part in the 24h race! Chapman was furious. He swore that never again a works Lotus would be in the Sarthe!
But anyway. The #44 car finished eighth overall and the #45 was on P11. That was again a win in the 1151-1300 cc class. There was also a double finish (first and third) in the Index of Thermal Efficiency. The #45 car finished eleventh.
Again Team Elite came to LeMans with two modified- Climax FEW powered Lotus Elite cars in 1963. Where Gardner-Coundley (#38) were forced to retire because of engine troubles, John Wagstaff and Pat Fergusson (#39) finished tenth, despite losing time when he put the car in the sandbank at Mulsanne. They also won the 1151-1300 cc GT class.
The class victory for Lotus was again there in the 1964 race. Team Elite car, driven by John Wagstaff and new director Clive Hunt had a great weekend. The had a steady race moving gradually up in the field as faster cars faltered. They finished P22 overall. This was the sixth consecutive class win for Lotus. The other Lotus, an Elan-type was a French entry. Drivers Rene Richard and Pierre Gelé were out after 7 laps with an overheating engine.
1963
1964
In 1967 Lotus found his way again to Le Sarthe. A #44 Lotus Europe Type 47 was entered by Team Elite and entrusted to drivers John Wagstaff and David Preston. The car never convinced and by the 5th hour, the race was over. First there were brake problems and then a blown cylinder head gasket.
With the new GT rules in 1993, Lotus came back to Le Mans. Two Lotus Esprit S300 were entered by Chamberlain Racing, In 1994, there was more official input for one Esprit and a private Italian Esprit by Fabio Magnani. The cars were further developed and raced with some success in the BPR.
With the financial support from Toine Hezemans, there were two Lotus Elise entered in 1997. Only one, the Lammers-Hezemans-Grau did the race.
In 2011, two official Lotus Evora took part in the 24h race.
