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.
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