or those lucky enough to be there, the Beatles were
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bloom. Love Me Do charted only as high as number
17 late in 1962, but for anyone paying attention the
revolution was patently here, and it was turning fast.
Some months earlier in that seismic year, an
equally ground-shaking force had quaked through
F1. Thanks to the British Racing Green cigar-shaped
tube with vivid yellow stripe you see here, and Jim Clark, the
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the motor racing world would ever be the same again.
The Fab Four were no overnight sensation, of course.
They’d paid their dues before the Big Bang. Likewise, Team
Lotus and live-wire founder Colin Chapman had endured
more than a fair share of setbacks during their own slog for
success. Landmarks had been and gone without title success:
the ‘mini-Vanwall’ Lotus 16, with shoe-shaped body from the
pen of Frank Costin; the boxy 18, as Chapman took Cooper’s
cue and plumped for mid-engined push rather than front-
HQJLQHGSXOO WKHWKDWDGRSWHGWKHGHFDGHGH¿QLQJlow-drag body shape; and the Type 24 that honed the pleasing
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But Chapman had saved his own Big Bang solely for himself- and he wouldn’t be sharing it.
Lotus customers seethed at Zandvoort in May ’62 when the
factory revealed their secret weapon. The Type 25 looked like
their 24s and shared the same mechanicals, justifying (at least
to the letter) Chapman’s vow for factory/customer parity. But
the reality was ‘Chunky’ had pulled a fast one. And then some.
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single-seater racing car. In place of the 24’s traditional steel
tube frame was an aluminium riveted tub created from a
pair of D-shaped pontoons joined fore and aft by bulkheads
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suspension. This thing was not only lower and much lighter,
it was around three times as stiff in torsional rigidity than
the customer 24. On Dunlop’s increasingly grippy tyres, the
potential of the 25 must have been aggravatingly obvious.
Now, monocoques were hardly new. Aeronautical engineers
F
THE LOTUS
25
NOW
THAT
WAS
A
CAR
No. 66
RETRO
RACING