New MKIIIB from Lola Cars!

R

The word is that the first of 20 continuation series Lola MKIIIB coupes is now under construction, to be ready for the Autosport show in January. Nothing official yet but I hear that Lola's price will be £165,000. Get your cheque books out ... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

There will be a few articles about the MKIIIB in the coming months to coincide with the launch. Tony Dron and a few other journalists tested Nigel Hulme's MKIIIB at Silverstone a few weeks back and there will be articles in Motorsport, the Express motoring supplement, Vintage Racecar mag among others.

In addition, a new Lola Heritage website was launched yesterday at www.lolaheritage.co.uk - this is a vast improvement on the previous site and there has been some real investment here (it's now in 4 languages). Sadly the previous material on the old site has been lost.

lolaheritage.jpg


Cheers
 
D

Tell us more Rob if you know more. example; Did they use old tooling to make uprights, suspension, wheels, and the chassis? Were the original body moulds used? or make new moulds? Are the new bodies using new materials? If they are doing the MKIIIB, are they also doing the MKIII? I like the looks of the single head-light nose.
Thanks for the info!
 
R

Richard

Hi Rob

The Heritage site sure does look much better.

£165,000 eh? I have a letter somewhere from Lola from about 1984 (from memory) saying they had just built a run of MkIIIBs from the original blueprints which were for sale for £25,000 (less engine and gearbox) plus VAT. Inflation's a killer...

I would love to see (and hear) a new one in the flesh, though.
 
R

Richard

William, you beat me by a minute!

AFIK, Specialty Mouldings in England still has the original moulds for the T70 MkIIIs and IIIBs, so I would guess they were contracted to produce the new shells. I can't shed any light on the mechanical tooling, though.

Lola's letter to me was in response to my query about the possibility of doing another run of MkIIIs. They said a lot of the original drawings had been lost, so no joy there.
 
R

Here's a pic of the unveiling of the first of the continuation T70 MKIIIBs. Lola founder Eric Broadley with current Chairman Martin Birrane.

news3b.jpg


Cheers.

Rob
 
p thompson

Paul Thompson 'Hooligan'

Admin
5/5 - originals are 3072x2048 but about 3MB each - if anyone is interested I'll stick on a page for download.. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
 

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D

Johan, If I understand your posts correctly, you have Dan Gurney's T70. I remember seeing that car at Bridgehampton, NY. I believe it was a race before they maned the series CAN AM. Thinking back, all the "Big Guns" were there. I was working on Sam Posey's McLaren MIB. We were all quite impressed with what Jim Hall showed up with to race; "Wings"! Sam's little 289 Ford didn't seem to have the power the Chevys had, but Sam could drive with the best of them. Somewhere I have a picture of the front row at the start; Dan Gurney, Bruce McLaren, John Surtees! Man! what a sound and race! I later went on and helped make the Caldwell D7 CANAM car. I came close to owning the D7 one day, when they asked me to take the whole D7 car and parts to the dump. Ray Caldwell changed his mind when I asked if I could have it. I always wondered what has happened to Guney's T70. I looked at a T70 Penn. belonging to a Denis Guilbert for sale for $ 6500.00. The lowest he would come down in price was $ 3000.00, but I just bought a new Chevy Van, trailer and race car. I was out of money! Too bad... it was an ex-Penske car driven by Mark Donohue.
 
J

Johan

Yes bill, we are half way through restoring it. I guess it would be more accurate to say that it is being re-assembled, as I am leaving it as original as possible.I'm glad you remember it. I believe the Caldwell D7 is still around somewhere as well....
How is your van doing ? Sorry, I had to say that !
I could have bought a Ferrari 330 GTC in highschool for 20,000 or a Cobra in College for 35,000.
Try not to think about it !
 
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