15 replies to this topic

[bobbo]

After looking at the thread about BobAnderson and checking FORIX, I began to wonder, how good WAS the Lola Climax F1 he and John Surtees drove?? Big John did get a few second places, but no WC wins. What's the story here?

Bobbo

[Ian McKean]

Don't know about how good it was but it was surely the prettiest F1 car of the day, maybe any day.

[petefenelon]

Originally posted by bobbo
After looking at the thread about BobAnderson and checking FORIX, I began to wonder, how good WAS the Lola Climax F1 he and John Surtees drove?? Big John did get a few second places, but no WC wins. What's the story here?

Bobbo

Initially the chassis flexed like hell -- Surtees noticed that when one wheel was jacked up none of the others moved!

Broadley put a few more tubes in it and apparently the handling became somewhat more precise!

pete

[Barry Boor]

The car was not blessed with fantastic reliability, but quite often the only thing that stood between JS and victory was a little green car with yellow wheels driven by a little bloke in a blue hat!

And once by a bloke with a moustache!

John did win at Mallory, but the opposition was meagre.

[Doug Nye]

Still a lovely car - absolute state-of-the-art suspension design, much admired... Eric Broadley was thought of as ACB Chapman on the straight and level...

DCN

[Roger Clark]

Two second places and fourth in the championship for Surtees is pretty good for new manufacturer to Formula 1. The opposition that Surtees beat at Mallory Park wasn't bad; it included Clark, Brabham and G Hill, although Hill was driving a 4-cylinder Lotus (why, I don't know). Surtees was running away with the non-championship Reims race against a top-class field when the engine broke.

Although the cars raced on in 1963, they no longer benefitted from works development and the drivers were either less good or less experienced. Broadley was attracted by dollars, Surtees by lira. If the partenrship had continued on Grand Prix racing, many things might have been very different.

[bobbo]

Originally posted by Doug Nye
Still a lovely car - absolute state-of-the-art suspension design, much admired... Eric Broadley was thought of as ACB Chapman on the straight and level...

DCN

Doug:

This has me just BEGGING for more!

Bobbo

[Ray Bell]

From memory, Lola went to a monocoque or semi-monocoque construction some time in mid-1962...

A big effort must have gone into that in the middle of the season...

[David Beard]

Originally posted by Ray Bell
From memory, Lola went to a monocoque or semi-monocoque construction some time in mid-1962...

A big effort must have gone into that in the middle of the season...

Is that before or after the Lotus 25 appeared ;)

[Doug Nye]

Another tube of Foster's, Ray?

DCN

[Vitesse2]

Originally posted by Doug Nye
Another tube of Foster's, Ray?

DCN

I'll say it before he does .... he's TT

[Doug Nye]

Snap! So am I - and it has the same effect on me...

DCN

[bobbo]

. . .And here I am sucking on my third bottle of Heineken Dark . . .
(at least getting there!)

Beer = Holy Water??

Bobbo

[Ray Bell]

Originally posted by David Beard
Is that before or after the Lotus 25 appeared ;)

After... the Lotus 25 turned up for the first WDC event of the year at Zandvoort, as I recall.

Then I feel sure that my memory banks are saying 'British GP' as when Lola turned out a mono or semi-mono... but I could be wrong.

Now, Vitesse... what's this TT business?

If that means 'teetotaller' then you're wrong. I don't drink beer and I don't get drunk, but I do drink a little wine and a limited amount of other stuff at times.

[Vitesse2]

Funny, from some of your Paddock Club posts I thought you were a total abstainer ....

And I think what David and Doug are trying to say is that there never was a monocoque Lola Mk4 ....

[Catalina Park]

Ray has a little wine now and again .......... or is that whine