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Fausto/Nordic
In the 1977 Monza 1000kms, Lombardi/Pianta drove car no 15, described as a Lola T282, so I think here is our answer...
Very few of the DFVs ran a 'snorkel'/airbox apart from the Bonnier car in Austria 72 (maybe Watkins Glen, can't remember) and the same car when it ran in the hands of Daniel Rouveyran in 1973, so I don't think the lack of an airbox would point to it being a 2-litre car.
Here's a point to throw into the ring. Very early on in the thread, Alain Hache said that his notes said the car which appeared at Rouen in Oct 72 (described as the prototype T282 in the Autosport report) could well have carried the chassis number T280/2. This could be interpreted in two ways: firstly that it was an interim car (e.g. with the T280 body but some subtle modifications under the skin, which is what was implied in the AS report) or, secondly, that this was the car's actual chassis number and that it had utilised the chassis number from JoBo's Le Mans car.
The reason I suggest this is that it was quite common in those days because team's needed to have customs carnets to transport cars around, so if they had the carnet for a particular chassis (in this case T280/2 or HU02, whatever you want to call it) they would build a new car but put a chassis plate on to match the paperwork.
Supposing this was true? The car was then shipped to South Africa, where Jean-Louis Lafosse rolled it in practice and damaged it enough to prevent it being repaired for the race at Kyalami. But by all accounts, it doesn't seem like it was that badly damaged and anyway the race report says that it was insured. It was very rare to throw away a car in those days (even it was insured) so I am almost sure it would have been repaird and sold on. Whether or not it was sold on with the same chassis plate as the Kyalami car, given that it had been the subject of an insurance claim is another matter entirely, of course!
Supposing this car was rebuilt during the winter of 1972/1973 and sold to a customer? Reading through the thread again, I note that a second T282 run by Jolly Club appeared at Dijon 73, running a 3-litre Capri V6 engine - could this be the same car? Perhaps it was later refitted with a DFV and is the one which is being advertised by Fox Motorsports in this month's Motor Sport? Might it also be the car that was reported to be in Italy by Kojima_KE007?
The only problem with this theory is that I am sure Alain has told me that T282 HU06 was built in Jan 1973 and that this was the car run by Filipinetti with Gitanes sponsorship on behalf of the works that season. In which case, which car is HU05 (also advertised this month by Fox!)??? The Schulthess car, perhaps?
Also, I have been told (to support something someone said in an earlier post) that the car Blaton owned was T282 HU06, so this would seem to be the ex-works Gitanes car. However, I believe it at one time had a chassis plate saying it was a T286 and it was only when it came to a well-known UK restorer that it was correctly identified and the FIA papers were changed.
I believe a while back in this thread that PHDM suggested that there was a question mark over the other car Blaton owned, which is apparently owned now by someone in France called Ivan Maier/Meyer/Mayer. For obvious reasons I couldn't possibly comment on that statement but I thought I'd bring it to your attention once more.
Apparently, the 'Broman car' (which we believe to be HU01) has been sold the US.
Right, that's my lot - over to you!
Michael
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