Lola T450 and T550

[Dan Rear]

DW, who's the Swiss T460 man, just out of interest ?

[driftwood]

Klaus has the car in Switzerland.

[Thomas-lola]

Hello,

I am the son of the guy who have the Lola T450 HU3. It's a very rare car with a lot of parts. I agree that it's probably the worst seventies formula 2 car, but this year, we won three races: two in the championship monoposto and one in the french hillclimbing championship.

I created a website and I would like to find pictures/articles about the Lola T450.

[dereklola]

Do you know Dave Dedrickson out in WA state? He owns T450 #1, T460 #1, T460 #15 and T360 #15.

[Steve Wilkinson]

David Render at Shelsley Walsh in 1981.The programme has it as a T460 plus it was running a 1.6 BDA engine.

This may help!

[Alan Brown]

Did it not race at all in F2? I know it practised at Thruxton in April 1976, but qualified well down the grid and Ian Ashley withdrew.
[Ardmore Racing with a Swindon BDX]

[allenbrown]

Lola records for the Lola T450 are as follows:

HU450/1 (Light Blue) Ardmore
HU450/2 (Marlboro) ATS
HU450/3 (Dark Blue) Mader
HU450/4 (Red) Germany/Bill Bradley

Does this clear up these cars once and for all? The identifications of HU1 as the ATS car and HU3 as the Mallock car (both from F1R?) are just plain wrong aren't they?

Or am I missing something?

Allen

[Chris Townsend]

Allen

Ray Mallock badly damaged the Ardmore car quite early on at Mallory
In a testing shunt I think.
Agree that F1R is wrong about ATS car, but might Lola not have done one
of their little swaps between 1 and 3?

Chris

[allenbrown]

Hi Chris

It's possible there was a swap but what's the evidence? I say that not because I doubt the evidence but because I simply don't know what it is. I haven't followed these cars at all well.

As far as I've been able to see so far, Lola's normal practice was to put a new (unnumbered) tub into a crashed car. I've only got one piece of evidence so far for someone getting a different car to what's in the invoice record and that's Kroll's T142 in 1969. And there might have been that T190 we talked about years ago. Can't think of another off hand. Can you?

Allen

[Alan Brown]

A T560 Hart 2.8 was shared by Erwin Lyndsay and Jonathan Toulmin at the 1987 Brighton Speed Trials. Presumably the ex-Render car. Any more updates?

[Steve Wilkinson]

Lola T560-HU2

David Render - with Abarth 6cy 2 Litre - 1979/80/82
At the Brighton Speed Trials in 1979 Allan Humphries drove the car.

David Render - With Hart 2.0 then 2.8 - 1983/84/85

Jonathan Toulmin - With Hart 2.8 - 1988

Lola T450-HU1

David Render - with 1.6 BDA - 1978/81

Jonathan Skinner - with 1.6 BDA - 1983/84

Mike Lane - with 1.6 BDA - 1985/86

NB A Lola T450 appeared driven by Rod Fisher; in 1988 it had a 2.0 BDA whilst in 1989 it ran a 2.0 BDG. I suspect this was the ex-render HU1 but cannot confirm.

[pinguino]

Re: Lola T560 HU2

I owned this car for a brief period at the beginning of 1996. I bought the car from Alan Newton who I think bought it from Render (I can confirm this if anyone is interested) The car was fitted with a running Abarth 15 deg 260 '6' cylinder engine on Lucas injection. I exchanged the car for an Abarth Osella PA1 with a collector in Italy who still owns the car. In fact he is planning to hill climb it in Italy this year.

The car was fitted with a chassis plate which was stamped T560 HU2. I have a photo somewhere.

Colin Pool

[allenbrown]

Welcome Colin

I recall you posted a few times a few years ago but it's good to have you back. You've owned so many cars that are of interest to us, be warned that there may be questions.

Interesting to know that the T560 had regained its Abarth when you had it. If you are able to confirm it's route to you, that would be most helpful.

Allen

[Steve Wilkinson]

Alan Newton had two 'Abarth' 6 cylinder two litre engines. One went with the Lola whilst the other was installed in a March F2. I think only one was an original engine whilst the other was assembled from spares around a newly manufactured block.

Colin was out sprinting his glorious Abarth Grp 6 at Colerne last year and I believe in May he is back again!

[allenbrown]

Steve

Do you know who Newton got the T560 from?

Allen

[Steve Wilkinson]

Originally Posted by allenbrown

Steve

Do you know who Newton got the T560 from?

Allen

No!

[pinguino]

Hello

Since I posted last week I have been to see Alan N (dropping off an Abarth 6 cyl and a 4 cyl for servicing). Anyway we chatted about the Lola Abarth. It seems that John Reid of Holbay 'loaned' the Abarth engine to David Render. In the search for more power, David R asked John if he would take the engine out to 2.5 litres. John was not interested and the engine was returned to Holbay. Alan N bought T560 HU2 from David R and then bought the 15 deg 260 engine from Holbay thus reuniting car and engine. Alan's second engine (the vertical one) was not built from a new block as such. It was an original Abarth block but bought from Holbay who, as is common knowledge, bought the entire project from Abarth following Fiat's clampdown on the SE027 project. I owned this engine in 1996.
Alan built a final Abarth engine (I say final because there are no more blocks left and believe me, you would not want to make one) for Englebert Moell in Switzerland. Englebert bought all the 6 cyl stuff that Holbay had and Alan made the engine. It was a costly exercise because many new parts had a be made from scratch. The '45 degree engine' was destined for Englebert's SE027 but when I saw him last June, he said that the installation was proving too complicated and he was going to stick with a 4 cylinder.

The PA2 I drove at Colerne belonged to Peter Rigby (not me) and I believe that he is going to drive it there himself next month

[allenbrown]

Originally Posted by allenbrown

Lola records for the Lola T450 are as follows:

HU450/1 (Light Blue) Ardmore
HU450/2 (Marlboro) ATS
HU450/3 (Dark Blue) Mader
HU450/4 (Red) Germany/Bill Bradley

Does this clear up these cars once and for all? The identifications of HU1 as the ATS car and HU3 as the Mallock car (both from F1R?) are just plain wrong aren't they?

Or am I missing something?

Allen

Yves Courage drove a Lola T450-BMW in French hillclimbs in 1976. Yes, that's right, 1976. So a brand new one, "toute nouvelle" in fact. It first races at Charnisay on 14 March and in the black-and-white picture it's definitely dark in colour.

So which one is this?

Allen

[Chris Townsend]

HU1: Mallock
HU2: ATS
HU4: Binder
so HU3 via Mader, the Swiss agent?

Chris

[Dan Rear]

Didn't we think Ray M used HU3 for a few races, after his Mallory shunt in the first G8 race destroyed HU1??

[allenbrown]

Maybe, but didn't we eventually conclude that all references to HU3 in the UK were mistaken and should refer to HU1?

[Chris Townsend]

Dan

I'm suspicious about that observation, given the F1R's equally flawed noting of the ATS car. All the other observations we have, plus the build record, plus Lola's track record of putting in new tubs to existing cars, plus Render's identification of his car as chassis 1 in an ad, points to Ardmore always having HU1 - regardless of what plate it had on it...

Chris

[allenbrown]

Was Mader the Lola agent for France in 1976? it would make sense that he's picked up the agency from Bonnier who presumably took care of most of Europe.

[Chris Townsend]

I think he was Swiss but he might have covered France as well

Chris

[Dan Rear]

I wonder why in heaven Yves C would have bought a brand new Lola F2 in 76. Wasn't he in 2-litre G6s by that time? And if he was to buy an F2 for the hills, why the heck a Lola? Cheap maybe ?? Any of our French colleagues shed any light on this?