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CLASSIC TEAM LOTUS

AUTOSPORT HISTORICS 25 JULY 2019 13

RESTORED

39 F1

4 Indy

11 other formula cars

5 sportscars

continue to provide some of CTL’s unique selling points. Dinnage

joined Team Lotus in 1982 and Andrew Ferguson, who had been

team manager in the 1960s and 1970s, was also involved.

“Clive said, ‘I want to get some of dad’s cars running’,”

recalls Dinnage. “I thought he meant evenings and weekends,

but then it became apparent he wanted someone full-time!

“It was quite an easy decision because things at Team Lotus

had changed from when I joined, from being a frontrunning

team to a team of limited budget under new management. We

were doing things that we’d done before and hadn’t worked.

It wasn’t very motivational and it wasn’t fun anymore.”

Dinnage joined as a mechanic. Importantly, the redundant

stores were also full of parts, which continue to help Classic

Team Lotus – it’s such a vast collection that Chapman

believes “we’ll probably only use 1% of it”.

The focus initially was on maintenance and restoration,

which included providing services for other owners. David

Render, who had hillclimbed and sprinted F1 Lotuses, was

the first customer, but there was no intention to go racing.

“We didn’t have any anticipation of racing then,” says

Chapman. “It was to look after the cars. It was just a one-car

transporter and it was pretty hand to mouth. We could,

perhaps should, have been more ambitious, but a little

bit of caution doesn’t hurt every now and again.”

“I wasn’t particularly keen to go racing anyway because

I was Martin Donnelly’s mechanic when he had his bad

accident at Jerez,” adds Dinnage. “I questioned why I did it.”

Then Sean Walker – son of Ian, who had been an important

business associate of Colin Chapman in the 1960s – approached

them, wanting to compete in historic Formula 1. He bought

a Lotus 87 from the family collection and that brought the

team into race preparation.

“We had a lot of cars and couldn’t envisage keeping all of them,

so sold some of them as a foundation for the business,” says

Clive. “Gradually it grew. If we did a chart of how many cars we

worked on, how many races we did per season, how many

F rom its first win in 1961 until the end of 1978,

when it scored its final world championship titles, Team Lotus
was the dominant force in Formula 1. It secured seven drivers’
crowns and 74 points-paying grands prix victories, more than
any other team during the period. Boss Colin Chapman also
introduced some of the most innovative cars in motorsport
history, including the monocoque Lotus 25, Cosworth DFV-
engined 49 and ground-effect 79.
Chapman died in December 1982 and, after some success
with Ayrton Senna, the team faded in the late 1980s, closing
its doors in 1994. But at almost the same moment, plans
were being made to ensure its legacy continued and a new,
successful venture was the result: Classic Team Lotus.
Created by Chapman’s son Clive
(left) and long-standing Team Lotus
man Manning Buckle, Classic Team
Lotus had simple beginnings.
“My family had the collection of Lotus
cars, which had started in the 1970s after
my dad had restored a barn,” says Clive.
“It immediately became the place where
cars were put. The fact that they weren’t
in the way and he wasn’t railing at them
meant the team surreptitiously started
collecting the best one of each.
“They were looked after during the
winter, when the race mechanics didn’t have a lot to do, but
that disappeared as F1 got busier and I got to the point where
I thought we had to set up our own workshop. We decided
we needed an entity to look after things in its own right.
“I floated the idea past Chris Dinnage [who was the Team
Lotus works coordinator in 1993] and
caught him at a good time. We chose
what had become redundant stores at
Hethel, across the road from the car
factory, because the F1 team had
ended up at Ketteringham Hall.”
Direct links to the original team

TEAM LOTUS

STATS

2018

SEASON

125 finishes out of

142 starts by 25

different cars

across 23 events

WINS

6 Monaco Historique

6 Goodwood

Glover Trophy

Classic Team

Lotus has its

own machine

shop, and uses

several local

specialists