A racing car manufacturer that has won 507 championships and boasts 4,385 victories. That’s Laura Cars. The founder is Eric Broadley. He is a person who has had a strong presence in the long history of automobile racing.
Lola Cars was founded in 1958 by Eric Broadley. After leaving school, he worked as a quantity surveyor and enjoyed motorsports in his spare time. In Britain at this time, there was a strong enthusiasm for taking on the challenge of motorsport, with everyone from Colin Chapman to John Cooper participating in races with racing cars that they had built themselves. In the case of Broad-Ray, the first Broad-Ray Special won races around the country, so in response to customers who wanted it, they developed a machine with the same specs, and produced the famous Broadway musical comedy “Dumb” that was popular at the time. It was named Lola Mk1, taking its name from the song “Whatever Lola Wants” from “The Yankees.” In 1958, Lola Cars was established with three Mk1s built.
In the early days, there were many single-seater machines, but the Mk6 was the first to attempt a sports prototype. I have written in the past that this evolved into the Ford GT40. The first open two-seater was the T70.It was unveiled at the 1965 London Racing Car Show, won the 1966 Can-Am Challenge Cup with John Surtees, and was subsequently named Can-Am. Many privateers also became regular users of the Lola T70. Several T70s were introduced in Japan, but they did not achieve great success, perhaps because a satisfactory system was not in place.
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Lola’s Can-Am car evolved into the T160 in 1968. However, in addition to the delay in delivery, the team teamed up with John Surtees, who was in charge of the development test driver, but they were unable to achieve spectacular results. In particular, McLaren’s new machine M6A, which was released the previous year, was a big success, and they were unable to stand up against the overwhelming strength of its successor model, the M8A. A brushed-up model of the same type as the T160 was continued until the T165, but the results were not satisfactory. Therefore, we changed our strategy and decided to proceed with development mainly in the UK, leaving race management to Carl Haas, Lola’s importer in America at the time. As a result of their dedication to development, the T220 was born as the successor model to the T160 series.
The T220 was a machine that was an extension of the T160, but improvements were made to the short wheelbase, which was expected to improve driving performance. In the 1970 season, he participated as a works Lola for Karl Haas Racing. It appears that they were well-funded with sponsorship from tobacco manufacturer L&M. Peter Revson was selected as the driver. Although the T220’s speed was well proven and it showed its competitive ability to join the top four in qualifying, there were always problems with the engine, and out of the 10 races it entered, it was able to finish in only 3. In particular, the lack of engine durability was a problem. In addition, although a shorter wheelbase was adopted with the aim of improving maneuverability, Revson said that the handling during braking was peaky, so after a crash at Road Atlanta, a chassis that was 10 inches longer than before was adopted. change. Although it was called T220, it was essentially a T222 and a customer car.
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For the 1971 season, Carl Haas hired a new driver, Japanese Yutaka Kazato. However, the T222 was no longer Karl Haas Racing’s main machine at this point, and Lola’s new Can-Am machine switched to the T260. Dalnose’s car was driven by Jackie Stewart, who is also an F1 driver. Kazato’s T222 put up a good fight, but 5th place was his best. Meanwhile, the T260 driven by Jackie Stewart took home two wins and finished third overall, giving Lola its first win since 1967.
The Lola T222 in the Rosso Bianco Museum is a machine with chassis number HU222/02 driven by Peter Revson in the 1970 season. It is essentially a prototype of the T222, which can be said to be an improved version of the two T220s made. Unfortunately, there is no information on the chassis regarding T163.
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And the T260 is the second of two T260s made. This machine had the chassis number HU2, and Jackie Stewart apparently never drove it. The car was sold to driver Tom Heyser in the 1972 season and competed in Can-Am for two more seasons.
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Text: Takahito Nakamura Photo: T. Etoh
