Hi Andre
Thanks for your posts - although Tony Maggs must have been seriously frustrated about the wheel nut and gear change problems, he said this about the car:
"Although, the later Ford GT40, with its spoilers and ducts, was a faster car, it lost a lot of its character. The Lola GT was the most beautiful car I have ever seen."
At the risk of being the Lola GT anorak of the forum, it was raced 5 times in Europe. The prototype ran the Silverstone and Nurburgring races. The first production car ran at Le Mans. Augie Pabst then raced the Le Mans car, with the same Ford 289, for John Mecom at the 1963 Brands Hatch Guards Trophy. It had been repaired after David Hobbs' Le Mans crash, and repainted in Mecom colours. Oil pressure problems caused a DNF - Augie should have raced the third (Chevy) car that Mecom had ordered for that race but, in the true Lola style of the time, this car was not yet ready. It was eventually ready in time for the Nassau win.
At the same Brands Hatch event a year later, Augie ran the third car for John Mecom, fitted with a 6 litre Chevy engine. He came 11th.
As well as Nassau, where Augie beat Dick Thompson and Jim Hall's Corvette Grand Sports in style, the third Chevy car was raced at Sebring, Road America (twice) and Mosport Park, with mixed success.
After the 2nd Brands Hatch event, Lola in Slough widened the track and the bodywork at great expense to John Mecom (Laurie Bray told me that Eric was away when they widened the car. When Eric returned, he was really unhappy about how they did the back end - Eric confirmed this...).
The new body mods were short-lived. Augie took the GT to Riverside where the throttle jammed and it crashed in style. If it had been LHD, Augie would not have survived - the GT ended up with the crash barrier sitting above the central gear shift. Augie remembers thinking he was spitting out all his teeth after the crash, then thankfully realised it was just glass from the exploded windscreen! The third car has been rebuilt to its last correct racing specs and is on display at the Rosso Bianco Museum in Germany, except it's no longer the nice looking Mecom metallic blue.
So endeth this Lola lesson. I could write a book...!
Rob