Lotus 30

Mike Pass

Supporter
I was at Blyton Park a few days ago and a Lotus 30 was doing some shakedown laps. Quite an interesting car with some GT40 related aspects. It uses the same 289 SBF with FAV inlet manifold and Quad 48 IDAs. The exhaust however is very different as it has pairs of primary pipes connected and then each pair leading to the 4 individual exhausts. It has a very different sound from the GT40 crossover setup on the same engine. The gearbox is the same ZF but with hookes joints at both ends of the drive shafts. The suspension is very similar to the GT40 but the chassis and body are very different which led to the car’s problems of chassis flex and poor access. The chassis was Colin Chapman’s spine design and was like a giant pickle fork. While the car was very light and aerodynamic the chassis was not up to the job and flexed and broke. The later Lotus 40 tried to fix this without much result but the chassis eventually became the basis of the Lotus Europa chassis.
Chapman had a plan to sell this car to Ford as the basis for the planned race car which became the GT40 but his plan to beat Lola and McLaren and as we know the deal did not come off. A few pics and a cut away chassis pic attached so you can compare it to the GT40.
Here is a links to more detailed info on the car and a couple of videos. Might help with virus induced boredom!

Article link
https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/archive/article/november-2005/46/x-ray-spec-lotus-30

Video links


Cheers
Mike
 

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