Lola T 60 & 62 - Page 6

HayesCages · 19 Oct 2009, 22:08 (Ref:2565049)

After sitting down and reading this whole thread a while back I decided to see what a few of the guys that have been mentioned as past owners/drivers had to say. One was John Surtees, the other David Hobbs. Both responded to my inquiries in positive ways and I will post their words below (some editing has been done since everything we corresponded about doesn't pertain to this subject)

John Surtees:

"Thank you for your enquiry. I worked on the development and raced a Formula 2 Lola in the mid 60's. I or my company did not own the cars, they were run under the Midlands Racing partnership although we did use the Surtees Arrow on the livery of the car.
Kind Regards,
John Surtees"

Another:

"Further to our correspondence, in Nick Louden's book "Friends and Rivals" there are 2 good pictures on pages 26 and 27 of my driving the Lola F2 car decked out with the Surtees arrow that we used at the time. It is obviously not this type of chassis because your chassis shows a rocker type front suspension where these cars are obviously outboard. .....The pictures I am refering to date from 1967.

Kind Regards,
John Surtees"

And from David Hobbs:

"Thanks for the email. You have come to the worst person for history of my cars.
I did drive for MRP but it was in 1963 in F Junior. The three Lola's we had and that of Alan Rees were very good cars, were they T-61 I can't remember. I only drove for MRP that one year. I drove a Lola with a BMW engine in it in the German GP in 1967? It was a F2 car and I also drove Brian Redman's F2 Lola at Hockenheim also in '67. These two cars were white and maroon the MRP cars were the dark blue. ...
All The Best,
David Hobbs"

I don't know if this will help to ID any of the chassis but noted it to maybe help with filling in any gaps some may have with their chassis' history.

Another point I picked up while reading this complete thread was that it appears that some of the chassis have been riveted or partialy riveted whereas others have been wholly spot weled. Any thoughts on this anyone?

Lawrence

SteveTracy · 19 Oct 2009, 23:48 (Ref:2565104)

Quote:

Originally Posted by SteveTracy

'74-75 he drove the March 722, picked up the 75B used after one season, in 1976 as you noted.

Quote:

You're right and his dates are way off. The Lola left when the white w/blue/red trimmed March 75B came along, my father and brother drove down to Long Beach to pick it up as a roller.

Quote:

He drove the 75B at Westwood, Seattle, PIR, and Sears Point. Mostly at PIR and Seattle. It was quick but never as reliable as the 722 in the engine department, IIRC due to the Atlantic series engine changes (e.g. electronic ignition) complexity went up, as did cost.

.

A little off topic, but with the help of Chris and others I believe we determined the March was a 74B, not one of the dozen or so 75B's.

.

SteveTracy · 19 Oct 2009, 23:57 (Ref:2565109)

Quote:

Originally Posted by fv55inSpokane

...Further to our correspondence, in Nick Louden's book "Friends and Rivals" there are 2 good pictures on pages 26 and 27 of my driving the Lola F2 car decked out with the Surtees arrow that we used at the time. It is obviously not this type of chassis because your chassis shows a rocker type front suspension where these cars are obviously outboard. .....The pictures I am refering to date from 1967.

Kind Regards,
John Surtees"

Thank you Lawrence. I am surprised to hear such detailed information from John Surtees, clearly has a good memory for details. I appreciate you taking the effort to reach both of these guys and pick up some more interesting information.

Curious about the rocker vs. fully outboard suspension, I'd have to see a photo to fully appreciate that version of outboard suspension. W/re to my Father's car the front suspension appears to have had numerous repairs over time and could have been almost anything earlier. IIRC there was a lot of evidence of work done behind the driver to the engine bay area, possibly due to damage, IDK. I do know it was damaged pretty thoroughly by a friend running Rookie school in SIR, he took out several corners on the car and pretty much returned it that way No names, but Deb Ward, you know who I mean

- Steve

HayesCages · 22 Oct 2009, 01:21 (Ref:2566763)

Steve,
The front suspension on this car was never outboard configured. I can see all of the repairs to it though. It's been through hell and back I'm sure!

rkshanahan · 22 Oct 2009, 19:32 (Ref:2567392)

Gentlemen,

Sorry, but I have not been paying attention to this thread as the info seemed to have died out and I moved on to my Crossle FB project. I have not had time to really study the latest posts and take all this in, but it seems pretty conclusive that the car in Spokane is actually 62/8. We had narrowed the possibilities for my chassis down to 61/6 or 62/8, and based on Robs Lamplough's physical inspection of my chassis we identified mine as 62/8. This was based on his recollection of repairs made to the monocoque and the front rocker. I told Lawrence that I would make two chassis plates and we could swap them if any new info came out.

One thing Robs always said could be used to identify his car is the scoops over the drivers knees on the upper bodywork. He said he installed these for driver cooling. Since neither Lawrence nor I have the original upper bodywork for our cars, this wasn't useful info to us at the time. However, this might be useful to Steve or others looking through their old photos.

Rob

rkshanahan · 23 Oct 2009, 20:12 (Ref:2568260)

By the way, attached are photos of my car complete, just before the Quail Lodge concours last August. Looks like I may have to change the livery.

Regards,

Rob

HayesCages · 27 Oct 2009, 17:43 (Ref:2570878)

Rob, That looks fantastic!
I've contacted another driver of our chassis and will post his comments as soon as he gives the go-ahead.
Lawrence

SteveTracy · 27 Oct 2009, 19:54 (Ref:2570965)

Rob, the car looks amazing! Thank you very much for the information, and if this helps place your chassis to the original, all the better (hopefully, still blue, right?). It's cars like yours that I see under the old red paint and tacked on fuel bladders, it was a truly amazing car to see in '71 for a kid, a "real European open-wheel race car".

I think I must have posted the best photo I had of the car over on the March 722 chassis thread- oops.

SteveTracy · 27 Oct 2009, 21:09 (Ref:2570997)

In looking for another photo, I ran across these images from "The Webster Museum" in 2008. I assume the lavender jersey has something to do with its history...but does anyone know this car? If I could tell the Picasa account owner I could ask him but I can't navigate there right now.

The photo appears to be from Oct 2008. I think the chassis has already been accounted for, just curious where the car was last year this time since it was last sold looking just like this, originally green but painted as-is today w/o numbers.

It looks a lot like a car that sold for ~$80k USD on race-cars.com, SL 62/11.
http://www.race-cars.com/carsold/lol...1/t62011ss.htm

Sold by Joe Cavaglieri 2003 maybe?
http://tentenths.com/forum/showpost....1&postcount=49

I can't tell anymore about it, the other photos show a lot more detail:

Mostly just surprised to see high-res photos of the car pop up in a search someplace I don't recognize.

rkshanahan · 27 Oct 2009, 21:19 (Ref:2571003)

Steve,

Check out post #111 in this thread. I inspected this car back in about '02, just before it sold to its present owner. The car imported and raced here in the States by Frank Scuria, a quite famous Ducatti factory rider, which I imagine is where the jersey came from. It appears that the car has deteriorated a bit from the last time I saw it, as it was freshly restored at that point. 62/11 is listed by Lola as an F3 car originally painted green and delivered to Frank Williams in the lot of 4 cars he bought with Robs Lamplough.

Regards,

Rob

SteveTracy · 28 Oct 2009, 13:06 (Ref:2571398)

Thank you Rob. I was sort of surprised to see a car previously restored to such a high level with rust on it, and sitting in the corner of some nondescript location. I hope that's a reflection on the front upper arms and not more rust, that would be a pity.

Regards,
Steve

SteveTracy · 28 Oct 2009, 16:20 (Ref:2571542)

Just saw this nice link for the restoration of T60 SL60-2:

http://www.lolaheritage.co.uk/scrapbook/027/027.htm

Apologize if this is a repost, but a nice series of photos.

SteveTracy · 28 Oct 2009, 18:13 (Ref:2571597)

T60 SL60-1 1965: MRP
or
T60 SL60-2 1965: MRP
?
Chris Amon at Solitude, F2 race 1965 which he won:

Trevor Taylor(10), followed by Peter Revson(3), Alan Reese(1), and Chris Amon (28).

"Bob Bondurant in a T60" same page but no further explanation:

Simon Hadfield · 6 Nov 2009, 18:48 (Ref:2577200)

Bob Bondurant in a Lotus 32 BRM?

SteveTracy · 6 Nov 2009, 20:49 (Ref:2577277)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Simon Hadfield

Bob Bondurant in a Lotus 32 BRM?

Thus the quotes, I thought that was a little bit unusual photo and maybe wrong caption - from a Solitude Memorial site, 1965 F2 race. Peter Revson ran a Lotus 35 as did Hans Herrmann,the latter listed as a Lotus 35 BRM, finishing 4th and 9th places respectively. The photo of Chris Amon fits the timeline and car however.

http://www.solitude-memorial.de/idx05.htm

SteveTracy · 6 Nov 2009, 21:16 (Ref:2577293)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Simon Hadfield

Bob Bondurant in a Lotus 32 BRM?

BB is listed on the start sheet for the race but listed as "DNA"

V Grosser Preis der Solitude 1965
Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart, Germany
July 18, 1965

29 DNA 15 Bob Bondurant, USA John Willment Automobiles Lola T55 - Cosworth SCA
5 Ron Harris - Team Lotus DNS Lotus 35 - BRM 71

Makes some sense as the car he is sitting in looks like #5

http://www.formula2.net/F265_10.htm

SteveTracy · 6 Nov 2009, 21:44 (Ref:2577311)

Quote:

Originally Posted by fv55inSpokane

Our chassis just happens to have the original engine cover still intact. (Somehow!) I think it's been modified over the years to accept weber side-draft carbs.
Lawrence

Btw that is true about the Webers, the car ran Weber side draft carbs when my father raced it in FB. The one decent photo you can see the screen cage around the Webers. I was not all that old, but I do seem to recall him running it mostly w/o the engine cover, not sure why - probably because of frequent mechanicals. "Never on Sunday" isn't the nickname you want for your steed. Once the attempted repair of the fuel bladders leaked immediately so he was sitting in gasoline, later when it was running the side "pontoon" tanks an oil line for the cooler broke and gave him a dose on his backside of hot oil.

Also when (if this #8) Surtees ran at Karlskoga, he DNF'd with a broken drive coupling - supposedly the only time he ran the car in an F2 race.

http://www.formula2.net/F266_13.htm

I checked again this week with my older brother Brian on whether he had any recollection of the sold to party, but like my memory he says it just disappeared from the 3rd bay one day when we came home from school, no idea who it went to but even at that point probably sold for parts. My best guess is 1973, or 1974 at the latest.

Given today it still looks exactly like the last time I saw it in the 1970's w/re to color, stickers, paint, it is doubtful it ever ran again before Lawrence bought it. It looks like Dad peeled the numbers (91 or 92) off, but little else changed and someone would have had to repair/replace the front A-arms at least which were messed up from going off the last time out.

His March 722 was in the picture by then at home, so the Lola was sort of cast aside (not helping it was in a broken state w/re to suspension from its last outing in Seattle/Kent). The March was a great car but I wasn't happy to see the Lola leave, it seemed like it had some history and deserved to be kept intact. I always thought of it as some kind of a "ex-Gran Prix car" which turns out wasn't totally mistaken impression, not bad for a 12-year old kid from Oregon

PAKRACER · 27 Mar 2011, 04:51 (Ref:2853840)

I will confess I'm the idiot who cut off the end of the a Lola T62 to make into a SuperVee, in my younger and stupider days. At the time I bought it for approx $800 it was a roller, from a fellow in Marion Indiana. It did have rockers and inboard front suspension. He had bought it reportedly from Fred Opert Racing as a roller and hadn't done anything with it. It had allegedly been driven by Piers Courage in GB , altho there was no verification and at that time I only knew him as name I had read a little about. I got a little sponsorship from a local VW dealership and it was my plan to get a developed chassis without the development. It consequently went to a fellow in Cleveland who was going to autocross it and sounds like it went the NW. When I had it it did have the bags which were fragile and easily torn. I was told it was originally fitted with and MAE. I don't know the Chassis #, but hope this may shed some light on one of the chassis. you can PM me, I may have some photos and when I bought it. Again apoligize for my foolishness many years ago!

HayesCages · 27 Mar 2011, 20:25 (Ref:2854469)

Pakracer,
Wow! Thanks for chiming in with some new information, it's been a while since we've had any news on these chassis.
I've had a 'wanted' ad on Apex Speed site for over a year with no responses to try and find this chassis and listed it as an AWOL chassis on several other forums as well. My hope is to find it laguishing in a barn somewhere up this way. How knows.
Is there any way to track down the Cleveland guy?

If you could post a few pictures on this forum of the chassis it would be great.
Thanks!
Lawrence

HayesCages · 27 Mar 2011, 20:27 (Ref:2854472)

Just a thought: Does anyone know where Sans Thompson is now? Last I heard from his ex. was that he was living on the Columbia river on a boat in the Portland, Oregon area. That was fifteen or so years ago.
I think he has some info. on our chassis.
Lawrence

HayesCages · 27 Mar 2011, 21:53 (Ref:2854524)

I've had this for over a year but just thought of posting it. Don't know why, just wrong timing I suppose. Anyway here is some useful info from "Deb" Ward:

Lawrence: Bob purchased the Lola T-62 from retired Oregon Air National
Guard Col. R.J. Schmidt. I was with him when we picked up the car at
R.J.'s residence. My understanding is that the car had been a John
Surtees Formula II car and it had been stored for several years before
we picked it up. Supposedly, when Surtees had owned it, it had crash
endo'd (went end over end). The neoprene internal fuel cells had rotted
through and we attempted to make new fuel cells which turned out to
be a disaster and almost a catastrophe. When Bob took the car out the first time the glue gave way and the fuel leaked into the cockpit. At the
same time a short developed from the battery to the engine cut-off switch and was arcing before Bob shut it down and got out of the car
without further incident. Bob then had the 2 external fuel tanks built
which added to the weight and drag. We named the car "Never on Sunday" because it would run really well on Saturday and then something weird would happen to cause it to drop out of the race on Sunday. On one occasion Bob was racing quite well and then turned into the pits and off the track because he couldn't shift. I was crewing for him and what we initially thought was a transmission problem turned out to be a small rock that had been kicked up on the track and lodged precisely in the gear shifter slot preventing him from moving the shift lever. On another occasion I had taken the car out at Portland after a rainstorm
for some practice runs. I hit a wet spot and spun off of the track right into a mud puddle which threw muddy water 10+ feet high from the
spinning rear tires and cascaded down directly on top of me and the car. We cleaned the car and engine up and got ready for Bob to race the
next weekend. We usually put in separate plugs for practice and
qualifying and a new set of hotter plugs for racing. I torqued the race
plugs in but during the race the engine started missing badly. Bob came
in again behind the wall and I discovered he was missing a plug.
Evidently we didn't clean the plug wells in the engine good enough
and I had torqued the plug on the residue silt from my previous mud bath. The vibration worked the plug loose. We went up to Seattle International
Raceway for me to get qualified and licensed. After running several
laps one of the SCCA instructors said that I could make up a couple of
more seconds if I would attack the circuits harder on the back
straight. On about the second lap afterwards I drove in deeper and
braked harder and all hell broke loose. The car snapped around hard
rolled up over the curbing and came back down on the track. I was
pacing myself with a Formula Ford which was coming up the hill so I
started the engine and turned the wheel to straighten out the car but it
wouldn't straighten out. I then noticed the right wheel leaning in and
the upper suspension A-arm twisted out of the monocoque chassis. After
we got the car off of the track and inspected it, we discovered that the
weld attachment of the A-arm was corroded 3/4 of the way through. We
surmised that it may have been the result of the Endo experience years
earlier. That was the last I heard of the car after Bob presumably sold
it for parts. Let me know what your plans are for 'Never on Sunday". I
hope you have better luck with it than we did. Please say hello to
Steve for me. I ran into his mother at a Christmas Party several years
ago that I attended with my wife, brother and then sister-in-law. The
hostess was a British lady.

David E.B. Ward

Chris Townsend · 28 Mar 2011, 16:26 (Ref:2854959)

Quote:

Originally Posted by fv55inSpokane

Just a thought: Does anyone know where Sans Thompson is now? Last I heard from his ex. was that he was living on the Columbia river on a boat in the Portland, Oregon area. That was fifteen or so years ago.
I think he has some info. on our chassis.
Lawrence

Lawrence, Sans is still around! He's been doing rallies.
I've corresponded with him in the last twelve months.
I'll PM you an email address later today
The ex apparently burned most of his racing stuff, but the memory works okay up to a point

Chris

HayesCages · 28 Mar 2011, 17:41 (Ref:2855000)

Chris,
Thank you I'm looking forward to talking with him.
Lawrence

HayesCages · 9 May 2011, 21:55 (Ref:2877788)

I just received some pictures from Pete toaday, pretty exciting stuff!

HayesCages · 9 May 2011, 21:57 (Ref:2877790)

Pete is not sure of the serial number but I think we've already decided which one it is haven't we?
Unfortunately he didn't remeber the name if the person that bought it from him, only that he lived in Cleveland, Ohio.
Anyone have any ideas?

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