Lola T280

[Jeremy Jackson]

Michael,

That's why I asked about the Lapeyre/Chevalley car, and wondered if the fact that 07 was sold a few years ago was connected with this car appearing in the US. However, Vintage Motorsport (Nov/Dec 2003) did a couple of paragraphs on this car, saying that owner Bert Skidmore had restored in to 1979 livery, but nothing about how long he'd had it.

So, yes it could be HU07, just no definite information either way...

[Michael Oliver]

Well, I suppose it narrows it down a bit because only 2 T286s appeared at Le Mans in 1979 - the Martin Raymond Fisons car and the Andre Chevalley Racing car for Lapeyre...

Does anyone have any pics of the Skidmore car? I know it raced a few weeks ago at the Philip Island meeting in Australia and I asked for photos of it over on the 'other forum' but no-one responded... If we could, at least we'd know what livery it was in!

Also, what made you say that Skidmore's car was the ex-Lapeyre car in your earlier post? Finally, PHDM reported that T286/7 sold at Poulain to a French buyer, presumably Mahe. I guess we need to find out if he still has the car or sold it on (to Skidmore in the US?)...I was certainly under the impression from conversations I have had recently that the car was still with Mahe.

Michael

[Jeremy Jackson]

Michael,

So Lapeyre's wasn't 07 then...Photo of the Skidmore car at Watkins Glen Sept 2003 below.

The Martin Raymond car at LM79 was a T380, not a T286.
Jeremy

[Michael Oliver]

So Lapeyre's wasn't 07 then

Only if the car sold at Poulain was the real 07

Any ideas what the name of the primary sponsor is on Skidmore's car? Is this the livery that Lapeyre ran in 79 LM?

The Martin Raymond car at LM79 was a T380, not a T286.

Yes, sorry, I remember now you saying that Raymond had a T380 - I think it is incorrectly labelled as a T286 on one of the sites: Le Mans Register IIRC!

So only one T286 started LM 79 anyway, which narrows it down completely!

Michael

[Jeremy Jackson]

Michael,

That's how the car ran in 1979 - The only difference to my 1979 photo is that the "Richard" & "Elf" logos weren't there in 1979.

Primary sponsor was Macumba - A French hotel /club? - based near the French/Swiss border I think.

[Michael Oliver]

Jeremy

Just googled Bert Skidmore+Lola and came across a story sourced to shannons.com.au previewing an event (Philip Island, maybe?) and it said that his car was the first of four 3-litre T286s to be built, e.g. they are saying it is HU07. So either he owns the car sold by Blaton at auction or there are two cars with the same chassis plate...

Annoyingly, I cannot open up the page to read more of what they had to say but I think that is quite interesting.

Also turned up a couple more pics of the Skidmore car, IIRC on Richard Harrington's photography site.

Michael

[Jeremy Jackson]

Michael,

You're correct re: Richard Harrington's website, I also have a couple from there. His photo was the one in the VM report I referred to.

So we need to know what exactly was at Poulain...

[Dan Rear]

Jeremy, where has the Raymond LM T380 in '79 come from? Probably that I've forgotten the detail here, but didn't he have a 2-litre T390 in '75, and then back to Bolton to replace it. Was the T380 the ex Alain de C car, which we think may have been either HU4, or the de Cad LM2 ??

[Jeremy Jackson]

Dan,

It was the 75-76 de Cad car that Simon Phillips operated 78 - 79 (He was part of the offical entrant in 1979). Raymond brought the Fisons sponsorship for this race only, I think. The car as used by Dorset Racing in 1981-82.

I remain ever so slightly sceptical of the HU4 & "LM-" notation that I used previously. This was shown to me by someone else, and may be a personal notation only. I believe AdC's 1978 car was numbered ADC/78/1 (Which formed the basis of the first Ecosse) So I could assume the 77 car was ... ADC/77/1

[Nordic]

I have some pictures of the Dorset racing Lola at Silverstone in 81 & Brands in 82.
Also a couple of picture of the 33 & 30 298's at Lemans in 81.
If you are interested I will post them here.

[Jeremy Jackson]

Pics of the Lola in 81 & 82 would be great.

I have pics of the 81 LM cars, but I'm sure others would be interested

[Dan Rear]

Jeremy/Nordic, did Dorset have a 3-litre Lola in 81-82, I'd always thought a 2-litre, which was an original T290, variously updated thru' the 70s,and latterly called a T297?

I agree that the "de Cadenet" that AdC had built in about 77, and used to 80, later became the first Ecosse. I presume this was the car that he and Desire W won with at Silverstone and Monza in early 80. Sad end to a car with a good history, when it burnt out in T-Sports, mid-84 ? Or was this another car entirely ?

[Jeremy Jackson]

Dorset definitely ran the 3-litre, raced at LM & Brands in 81, but did little apart from a DSM race in 82. They retained the ex-Edwards/Barclays T290, and continued with it (and/or a T298) post-T380

I thought AdC may have built a new chassis for 80 or 81 (The Belga car at LM), but it appears this was his 78 car, and became the Ecosse, which was, as you correctly say, destroyed (Brands 84)

[Nordic]

Lola no 30 1981

Dorset Lola 81 Silverstone

Lola 33 LM 1981

Dorset Lola 82 Brands Hatch
Body off Belga De Cadanet LM 81

Lm 1980 Lola

[Michael Oliver]

OK - some more info on the earlier 3-litre cars, from Lola.

T280 - a replacement chassis, HU280/5, was built by Lola in 1972 and despatched to Ecurie Bonnier to replace the one destroyed in the Bonnier crash, chassis number 2. Therefore, it seems that the car which appeared at Rouen in October 72 and then Kyalami was not in fact the prototype T282 at all (it certainly looked more like a T280 than the next year's T282 when it came out) but merely an extension of the T280 line, with maybe a few bits tidied up compared to the early cars? It may well have carried (for customs/carnet purposes?) the chassis plate HU280/2, even though it was the fifth T280 *entity* built. Not sure what happened to this car after the Kyalami smash - forgot to ask - but other people I've spoken to have said that it was rebuilt. Perhaps this was the basis of the Schulthess T284 (although Lola denies any knowledge of such a designation - see my note later on).

The only snag to all this is that Chris Fox is advertising *both* T280/5 and T280/2 in his advert, although I don't think he is sure about the latter (it is in the US) because it doesn't have a chassis plate. All he says is that it is the car which wasn't crashed by Bonnier at Le Mans 72 (which would make it, according to our calcs, T280/1, not T280/2). However, looking at it, it looks quite a lot different to the picture of the Broman car which we believed to be T280/1 based on the identifying feature of the odd roll-over bar/hoop in the 73 Rouveyran photo and the Broman pic. It doesn't have the roll-hoop on it either, although that could easily have been replaced when/if it was restored/rebuilt, particularly as Americans put particular emphasis on their (often oversized) roll-over bars on historic racing cars... It does, however, have an airbox on it, which was unusual and may or may not be the original.

T282 - Lola constructed only one T282 officially, HU282/6 was completed (or rather invoiced) 4/1/1973 and delivered to Larousse (I think it was actually run by Scuderia Filipinetti that year IIRC). They are adamant that no more T282s were built BUT there was a 2-litre chassis supplied (T292?) in 1973 with an uprated bulkhead and T282-type roll hoop to accommodate a 3-litre engine. I think this car was sold to Jolly Club and was the one which appeared at the 1973 Dijon 1000kms with a 3-litre Capri V6 engine installed. Don't know what happened to it afterwards but anyway this car is not in the official T28* numbering sequence.

T284 - Lola say they did not build any such car with this designation. So, this is either the T280/5 Kyalami crash car rebuilt (perhaps most likely), another 2-litre car upgraded or it could be the 73 Jolly Club uprated car which was sold to Schulthess for the 74 season? If it wasn't the Jolly Club car, then where is this - maybe this is the mystery car still in Italy referred to by Kojima_007?

T286 - chassis 7 was supplied new to Heini (spl?) Mader, who I guess may well at that stage have been the European agent for Lola? Anyway, I think this is the car that ended up being driven by Lapeyre - not sure if it was owned by someone else - did we say Andre Chevalley? Chassis 8 they originally said was lagoon blue and went to Italian hillclimb exponent Mauro Nesti but I think they might be getting confused because AFAIK he only had a 2-litre BMW-powered car during that period. What they did say was that two T286s were sold to Capoferri, so these must be 8 & 9 as we know 10 wasn't built until much later. They were different in that they had three fuel cells (right, left, behind driver) and both cars had twin front brake calipers. IIRC one of these cars ran a 2-litre turbo engine and the other a DFV?

So does this iron out the histories a bit more and how does it fit in with what everyone else has said/knows already?

Michael