7 replies to this topic

[kirkkeyes]

I run www.lotus30.com and I'm looking for any info on "Lotus Suisse" who I believe to have been a Swiss Lotus dealer in the 60s and a driver named Pius Zund (with an umlaut on the u). Zund raced a Series 2 Lotus 30 at the Angola GP in 1965. As far as I can tell, that's it for that car's history. I know from race reports that the car has a suspension failure and I suspect it was left behind in Africa when Zund returned home to Switzerland.

 

I'm hopeing someone here has some info...

 

Thanks, Kirk

[group7]

there is mention and some poor photos, of Pius Zund, & Alvaro Lopes ? (spelling) with Lotus 30, here in the link.  http://www.mazungue....d&postID=240154

 

hope this is of some help.

 

Mike Scott (group7) in Canada

[Vitesse2]

Two grid pictures I found on Autodiva, of which you need to be a member to view, so I copied them and have reposted here. There's also a discussion on Motorlegend, which suggests it's the red #16 on row 3. http://forums.motorl...9&postcount=111 However, that doesn't look like a Lotus 30 - even to my less than expert eye! And if you go on a couple of pages from Mike's link, it's stated that the car was wrapped round a tree during practice and that Zünd received serious injuries http://www.mazungue....0064#post240064

 

 

 

Unusual place to find Zünd. Quite well-known as a Mustang driver in Europe - hillclimbs, TdF etc. I found some references to connections with both Scuderia Filipinetti and Alan Mann and also a Swiss press article mentioning him running a Mini Cooper in about 1962.

[The Mountaineer]

That red No. 16 car is a Porsche Special built up on a wrecked Spyder - RSK I think - by Pierre de Siebenthal with some help from Georges Gachnang of Cegga fame and bodied by Drogo. They usually just called it Porsche, but sometimes also Porsche Prototype or Cegga-Porsche. It started its career with a 1600/4, then moved up to 1700 cc, and finally got a 19916 engine. Its driver at the occasion might be Antonio Peixinho, but that's just a guess.

 

Pius Zünd's Lotus 30 cannot be the AC Angola car, as suggested on Kirk's homepage. It was bought new by Karl Foitek via Lotus Suisse and delivered directly to Vienna for an airfield race in spring 1965. After very few practice laps, Foitek was stopped by - guess what? - a suspension failure. He was fed up with the car and sold it on the spot to Fritz Baumann. Baumann used it only a few times before handing it over to Pius Zünd/Ecurie Filipinetti. The ownership at that time isn't clear to me. Then came that Angola race with another suspension failure.

 

So far, all this is written exactly as Karl Foitek told me.

 

Then, the car must have returned to Switzerland and sold to Franco Sbarro who transformed it into a roadgoing Coupé. It still exists today and is still road registered.

 

Kirk, if you send me your mail address by PM, I can send you pictures, but I am too stupid to do it directly here.

[kirkkeyes]

Mountaineer -

 

PM on the way.

 

Yes, thanks to all that have replied. It's pretty certain the Series 2 Lotus 30 of Zund and the Series 1 Angola AC car are not the same (as they are different Series versions...) The Angola car appears to have been shipped back to Lotus and exchanged for a Lotus 23B. There's some speculation that yet another Lotus 30 (white in color) was in Angola, but it would be yet another car.

[group7]

Kirk, not related to your search, but might be of interest,  there is some information here on a Lotus 30 ? coupe raced in Sweden. I've also posted on the other thread on this forum related to Lotus 30's http://www.bilsporta...-till-lotus-30/

 

Mike Scott (group7)

Edited by group7, 25 September 2015 - 00:18.

[kirkkeyes]

THanks - I've seen that! Nice bit of history in that article!

[dgarrett]

Hello Kirkeyes, don't know if you're still interested in Lotus Suisse in general or whether your post was really to do with Pius Zund, but anyway:

Lotus Suisse was the Swiss Lotus concessionaire from 1965 onwards, running the small Swiss dealership network.

It was previously named Holiday Cars Import (strange name, that!) and was run from Geneva by Mme Perrin, a friend of Peter Warr. She renamed it Lotus Suisse from 1965 onwards. As I understand it, it rather fell into the doldrums, but was eventually revived in the Seventies by Edgar Schwyn

I have full page advert copies for 1964 and 1965 showing both names, if you're interested, but wouldn't know how to post them here!

Kind regards

David Garrett