Peter Collins investigates the history of Lola   

IN ALL THE BEST TRADITIONS of fledgling British 1950s racing-car constructors, Lola started small. Eric Broadley of Bromley, just on the cusp between south-east London and Kent, had a cousin, Graham, who was in the tailoring and gentleman’s outfitting business. In his spare time Graham had built a racing car and, again in the best traditions of British home racing car construction of the period, it was a Special to the regulations of the 750 Motor Club’s Formula 750, based originally around the Austin 7 engine.

Eric got the taste for motor-racing by trying the car at Silverstone in 1954. He was very busy as a chartered surveyor in a building firm working for the UK retail business Marks and Spencer erecting or enlarging their stores, by 1957 he had also managed to build his own Special but this was for the larger 1172 Formula that was based around the Ford side-valve motor most often found in the Ford Popular saloon.

It was extremely successful that year and the derivation of the name Lola comes reputedly from Eric’s then girlfriend, when she borrowed a couple of lines from a very popular song of the time “whatever Lola wants, Lola gets”.

The car’s results were enough to persuade potential clients to want to queue up to purchase replicas, so, having sold Lola to Alan Wershat, who renamed it Lolita, Eric took the plunge and turned constructor at the end of the year but, instead of replicas of his current car, he had ideas that would move him ahead into mainstream and international motor-racing, as he had designed a sports car that would fit into the 1100cc class that was dominated at that time by Lotus 11s and Elvas.

Still working out of the lock-up garage behind his cousin’s tailor’s shop in Bromley, Eric built the new Lola over the winter of 1957/8. He christened it the Mark 1 and it incorporated his own ideas on suspension design with wide-based wishbones, coil spring/damper units and long trailing arms front and rear.

On its first outing at Brands Hatch in August, the combination of Eric and Mark 1 became the first-ever sports car to lap the circuit in under a minute. Immediately the queue formed again for replicas and Broadley decided to lay down an initial line of three cars. During a test session, he asked the then current class ace Peter Ashdown to try the car. The established driver was very quick and simultaneously, Eric decided he was never going to be a grand prix driver, so settled for the role of a lifetime of designing cars for others to drive.

The Lola Mark 1 in Ashdown’s hands was almost unbeatable and annihilated the opposition, leading John Bolster to report after 
track test in Autosport: “it is literally true that this little bombshell has completely rejuvenated the 1100cc sports car class which was rapidly losing interest to the public. It is equally true to say that Lola victories are now taken for granted........” Such was the popularity of the car that Lola was still turning them out into 1962. In all 35 were built.

Laying down the line of Mark 1s meant vacating the lock-up in favour of the tiny workshop attached to Bob Rushbrook’s garage, still in Bromley. While Maurice Gomm built the bodies over in Byfleet, Bob was to stay with Lola, becoming works manager by the early 1970s.

For his Mark 2, Broadley turned to single-seaters and built a Formula Junior. It was quick, but, by 1960, to be on the podium you needed a rear-engined car like a Lotus 18 and the Lola, with its front mounted unit, was only ever going to pick up the left-over places. Even so, 29 were built and it is reckoned to probably be the best-handling FJ car of its genre. A 1-2 at the Nurburgring in 1960 certainly points to that conclusion.

The Mark 3 of 1961 was another Junior, but was radical and a remarkable glimpse of single-seaters of the future. The driver was seated well forward in the chassis and the fuel was carried in a cell behind him, in front of the engine amidships. Formula One was to get around to this arrangement in the 1980s. Sadly, despite the innovation, it failed to achieve any real success despite 11 being constructed, although, at a minor Formula One race at Brands late in the year, Hugh Dibley managed to place one fitted with a Cosworth 1340cc motor, in the top half of the field on the grid and held that advantage in the race, suggesting that there was potential.

Broadley has always said that he has never been interested in running works teams of cars, especially in Grands Prix, but he has been happy to be commissioned to do so. Just this opportunity arose for the 1962 season when the Yeoman Credit finance house decided to put money into motor sport. They chose Reg Parnell Racing and their drivers were to be John Surtees and Roy Salvadori. Broadley designed the Mark 4, a car that was state of the art for the period but at first was powered by four cylinder Climax motors until the proper V8 FWMV arrived. With the first car to receive a V8, Surtees took pole at the first World Championship race of the year at Zandvoort and remained one of the top three fastest in GPs for the rest of the year, taking second in the British and German GPs and winning the 2000 Guineas race at Mallory Park.

Broadley and Surtees were to develop a special relationship leading to other projects in later years but as 1962 drew to a close, Surtees announced that he was going to Ferrari and without reasonable finance in 1963, the Parnell team’s F1 Lolas slipped down the field.

After another FJ car, the Mark 5 in 1962, Lola bounced back into the news. Broadley had seen “the apparent potential of large-capacity American engines and their compact size made it logical to put them into a mid-engine GT car”. So they did.

Launched at the 1963 Racing Car Show, the Lola Mark 6 GT was a sensation. The basis of the car was a central monocoque with wide sills that doubled as fuel tanks inside which were four formers with bosses to take the roof structure and door frame. The floor had boxed bracing members for the seat and gear change and the suspensions were hung each end off subframes attached to the main chassis. Double wishbones at the front and lower wishbones with upper radius arms were at the rear. Again in the best traditions of small-scale racing-car production of the period, Ford’s parts bin was raided and Cortina Mark 1 ‘ban-the-bomb’ rear lights were an external feature of the car!

Power came from a 260bhp 4.2 Ford V8, later to be replaced with a 4.7 and the first race was the Daily Express trophy meeting at Silverstone in April. At the last minute Ferrari’s team manager Dragoni refused to release Surtees to drive the car, so the debut was conducted by Tony Maggs from the back row of the grid. Gregor Grant reported that Maggs passed nine cars on the first lap and eventually it finished fifth in class and ninth overall, a very encouraging debut. Two were entered at Le Mans and both retired, but a car sold to John Mecom won the Nassau Tourist trophy at the end of the year.

It is well-known history now that the car became the basis of thinking for Ford’s GT40 project and, indeed, Ford bought two of the three cars and took Broadley on as a consultant. This was a period of time he does not look back on with much pleasure due to the constraints involved and when he left after 18 months he established a new Lola factory at Slough.

In the meantime, the T53/4/5 Formula cars had been introduced, although none were spectacularly successful as this was the period that Lotus and then Brabham had made their own. The change to ‘T’ type numbers is explained by Mike Lawrence; the first, the T53, was the third expression of the Mark 5.

The return of Broadley to Lola led to the huge success story of the handsome T70. With distant connections to the Mark 6 GT via the GT40, this new sports racing car continued the earlier philosophy of the utilisation of American V8s in the back of a monocoque structure. In similar fashion to his previous two designs, the car was basically a sheet steel floor with side boxes containing fuel tanks. Box structures were welded on front and rear to carry the suspension and the engine/gearbox. The open bodywork was also fixed to the chassis with small screws to add a little extra rigidity. 5.4 or 6.2 litre Chevrolet V8s were the most popular type of power chosen and the car was successful right from the start.

The new car’s debut race was at Silverstone in torrential rain. Gregor Grant noted in Autosport that cars were revolving and going off so frequently that places were changing every few yards. Both Clark and Surtees, the latter in the Lola, spun many times and when the race was stopped due to the conditions Surtees was second. By June, at Mosport in Canada, he had taken the first of many international wins for the model in the Players 200 race ahead of Jim Hall’s Chaparral.

This Surtees/Lola relationship was booming as in September, the combination of John and a Lola T60 Formula Two car won the prestigious Gold Cup at Oulton Park only for it all to seriously falter when he crashed heavily later in the year in the Canadian GP with injuries so bad most thought he would never race again.

Meanwhile, Lola had been commissioned to build Indy cars and started in 1965 with the T80. These were not spectacular but they led through development to the T90 that John Mecom ordered for 1966. Similar to the T80 but with full monocoque construction allowing them to carry more fuel, they were fitted with Hewland 2-speed gearboxes and asymmetrical suspension. Graham Hill and Jackie Stewart were the key drivers at Indianapolis and by dint of staying out of trouble during the start pile-up they were well on their way to providing Lola with a 1-2 win when Stewart suffered an engine failure as the four-cam Ford motor blew up when he was well in the lead. Graham Hill saved the day though by taking an historic first place. For 1967 the T90 Mark 2 had symmetrical suspension and with Stewart again driving, he was challenging for second when the engine again blew up but it was all enough to prove that Lotus weren’t the only English single-seaters capable of beating the Americans on their home ground.

Broadley was reported as saying that “Indy has some problems – one or two are tremendously emphasised while the rest that you get in road-racing don’t come into it...” and Indy car racing proved to be a happy hunting-ground for the company. Four-wheel drive was tried in 1968 and later Roger Penske had chosen collaboration with Lola for his driver Mark Donohue’s attack on Indianapolis. 1972 was the last appearance of one of Broadley’s cars at the brickyard until the T700 of 1983 rekindled interest and success in the USA in CART racing that continued through to 2006.

Returning to the T70 sports cars, Surtees made a remarkable recovery from his accident and 1966 showed continued success by the combo. In the new Can Am racing series Surtees took a T70 Mark 2 to the overall Championship win and, frustrated by his Formula One Honda’s lack of success and excess weight put together a deal by which a T90 was adapted to take Formula One Honda mechanicals, the resultant car being the Honda RA300/Lola T130 and it took a very exciting debut win in the 1967 Italian GP at Monza. Another one-off displaying Lola’s many talents, was the T120 which was a sports car built to accept BMWs complex Apfelbeck 2 litre motor in the European Mountain climb Championship. This connection with BMW led to their motors being used in the Formula Two T100 and, in 1968, a developed T100 designated T102, being constructed solely for BMW’s Formula Two use. Lola’s own T100s took wins at Mallory Park and Zandvoort with Surtees.

Perhaps, though, it was the arrival of the T70 Mark 3 GT in 1967 that really grasped the public’s imagination. A sensationally swoopy roofed body by Specialised Mouldings extended the flexibility of the T70 especially at a time when Group 7 (Can Am) type cars were being phased out in UK racing at the end of 1966. Luckily the FIA took all the T70s built into consideration when homologation time came around and so the Mark 3 GT was accepted into Group 4 sports car racing, where they became a common and popular sight, even after the T70 had been replaced by the updated T160 in Can Am.

Lola had sought the acceptance of the T70 GT into Group 4 because FIA engine capacity restrictions were to come into force from 1968 with a three-litre limit for prototypes and 5 litres for GT cars, provided 50 had been built.  This total was reduced to 25 in 1969, which rule Porsche bent by producing its 917 and Ferrari did the same building 25 512S and M cars. The FIA was miffed and responded by putting a blanket 3 litre limit on sports cars for 1972. With the availability of Cosworth’s V8 as a long-distance engine, Lola, and others, built prototypes and in 1972, the T280 emerged for the Jo Bonnier racing team. Sadly for them, this was one of those Ferrari steamroller years when Maranello’s 312PB cars won everywhere, but not without being challenged.

A new market was penetrated in 1970 when the T200 entered Formula Ford and the start of a new European 2 litre sports car series provided Lola with a virtually tailor-made sales arena. The first of this line was the T210, powered mainly by Cosworth’s FVC, which developed into the T212 before the T290-8 cars evolved each year and dominated the category from 1972-1980.

In 1971, the T240 was a conventional monocoque and served as an F2/FB car but, the next year its chassis was utilised by the all-new T300 Formula 5000 car. This was the first of a line of T3xx F5000s, possibly the most successful and profitable single-seaters Lola ever made. Lola’s predilection with big-engined cars had enticed them into the UK’s F5000 series right from its start in 1968. Single-seaters utilising Chevrolet V8s were right up the company’s street and the T140/2 series appeared utilising T70 suspension parts. Popular and reliable, these cars were replaced by the T190/2 series before the T330/2 appeared.

The factory at Slough was proving to be inadequate as Lola increased its sales and investment in motor sport, so a site was found at Huntingdon and a purpose-built factory constructed in 1971. Only two members of the total Slough personnel found themselves unable to make the move such was the loyalty of the staff.

By 1980 the majority of classes in national and international racing were catered for from Formula Ford and sports 2000 to CART Indy cars. Two arenas revisited at that time were Formula Two and Group C/GTP. In the former, the Championship winning Toleman F2 cars of 1980 were productionised by Lola for subsequent years and designated the type T850. Sports cars have always been close to Broadley’s heart and for Group C/GTP he came up with the state-of-the-art T600 series that incorporated all the latest in ground-effects complete with covered rear-wheels. It was the star of the Silverstone 1000 Kilometres. It is all too easy to forget that Lola also supplied cars at club/national level and one or two of the T640-4 series Formula Fords were usually to be found mixing it at the front of hectic FF battles throughout the mid-1980s.

The return to Indy cars was netting superb results such that by 1993 five Championships had been won. In Europe F3000 had replaced Formula Two. Its title belies the fact that it was seen as a means for teams to use all the Cosworth V8s made redundant in Formula One by the rising tide of turbo motors. The rules were late in being drawn up and customers wanted cars. As the only big single-seater then in development at Huntingdon was the T900 Indy car it was adapted to the new formula. Others had the same problem and after the unsatisfactory first year in 1985, Lola turned the formula into a very successful arena, initially with the T86/50.

The company had started a complex new numbering system in 1985 with each category of racing having a separate number. So, in 1985, the F2/F3000 T950 was the ninth design for this type of racing while ‘50’referred to the actual category. This was changed again in 1986 when that year’s F3000 car was the T86/50 with the year to start with followed by the Lola category designation. In Lolaspeak Indy cars were ‘00’ so that year’s car was the T86/00.

Into 1987 Gerard Larrouse along with his backer Didier Calmels tempted Lola back into Formula One commissioning a car that was conventional and similar to their F3000. It was the way to go that year and the LC87 (for Larrouse Calmels) finished second in the Colin Chapman Cup for normally-aspirated cars. The T87/50 F3000 also became the outstanding customer car in the category. Mike Lawrence said in his Formula Cars book “Lola won the Japanese F3000 Championship and in Europe the car worked well everywhere with consistently good results”. In 1989 the T89/50 DAMS works car’s driver Eric Comas was second in the championship, but had amassed the same number of points as the eventual winner, the difference being wins during the season. There was nothing wrong with the car however as proven by Ogawa winning the Japanese F3000 series for Lola that year. By 1996 F3000 was a one make formula and Lola was awarded the contract by the FIA to build all the cars which it did for ten years before Sheikh Mahmoud announced his plans to introduce a World Cup of Motorsport called A1GP. Lola was chosen as the favoured chassis supplier. Over in Japan the success story has continued with Formula Nippon while in the USA as mentioned earlier, the tradition of winning Lola Indy cars has continued into the 21^st century.

Back in sports cars, throughout the late 1980s and into the1990s, Lola provided the chassis for Nissan and Corvette GTP cars in the USA, the former in particular enjoying considerable success with the company’s Txx/10 cars and a revival of the company’s involvement in long-distance racing has taken place since the turn of the new century starting with the SR1/ISRS/LMP675 in 1998-2001. In addition, the company has made an exciting return to the top levels of endurance competition recently with their latest LMP1 that ran in the 2008 Le Mans 24 Hours powered by an Aston Martin V12 but to show that they haven’t lost sight of their original grass-roots products, a track-day two-seater sports racing car was introduced in July 2008 and continuation examples of the fabulous T70 Mark 3b GT are available from the factory for historic racing.

All of this has been presided over since 1997 by Chief Executive Martin Birrane, who purchased the company at that time. I can finish in no better way than to quote him on Lola’s record so far: “It’s a wonderful achievement to reach 50 years in motor sport. We would like to pay special tribute to Eric Broadley and our highly skilled workforce. We also need to acknowledge the fantastic achievements of the world class drivers and long list of private owners who have raced our cars. They have all made a massive contribution to Lola’s illustrious history in motor sport. With exciting initiatives in place, we can all look forward to expanding the technical boundaries for the future of motor sport.”

So, as we head towards the second decade of the 21^st century the company’s output shows no sign of diminishing. Lola, a winning phenomenon set for another fifty years.

WINNING FEATURES OF LOLA’S FIRST 50 YEARS

1958-62 Mark 1 dominates 1100 cc sports car racing
1962 Surtees wins Formula 1 races in Mark 4
1963 Radical Mark 6 introduced
1965 New T70 takes first win in Canada
1966 T70 wins first Can Am championship
1966 Hill wins Indianapolis 500
1967 BMW powered Euro Mountain climb car success
1967 Honda powered Grand Prix car wins Italian GP
1969 T70 GTs take 1-2 in Daytona 24 Hours
1969-1976 Success in F5000
1970-1980 2 litre sportscar success in European championships
1980s Sports 2000 and FF success worldwide
1980s-2000s Indycar/CART winners
1980s-1990s Group C/GTP winners with Nissan
Late 1980s. Winners in F3000 then FIA chosen chassis into 2000s
1998 to date SR1, ISRS, LMP sportscars. Class win at Le Mans 24 Hours
2005 to date. Chosen chassis for A1GP