Colin Chapman

Caterham Cars has built a variant of its iconic Seven that was seemingly planned in the mid-1960s but never launched – the Caterham Seven Sprint. As though dug up in a time capsule, the retro detailing of the Caterham Seven Sprint will delight Seven purists and provides the perfect scene-setter to the brand’s ‘60 Years of the Seven’ anniversary, which will be celebrated next year.

In 1960, Colin Chapman sought to identify the most straightforward and uncomplicated way of building a Formula 1 car. The result was his first rear-engined design, the trendsetting Lotus 18. Lotus 18 – Colin Chapman’s U-turn by Mark Whitelock, the new book from Veloce Publishing, charts the 18’s competition history, from its inception, up to 1966 – via sensational victories over Ferrari at Monaco and the Nürburgring. Colin Chapman’s previous attempts at producing a Formula 1 car had been a complete disappointment. Despite being technically advanced, extreme lightness led to numerous structural failures. In 1960, Chapman decided to start with a clean sheet of paper, assessing the basic requirements for a contemporary Formula 1 car, and identifying how to achieve them in the most straightforward, uncomplicated way. The result was one of Chapman’s greatest creations – the Lotus 18 – a […]

The Lotus brand has long been synonymous with small, quick, and agile sports cars. Our Video of the Week this week features a history of the car through the 1980s via a show and rally of dedicated owners. The company was formed as Lotus Engineering Ltd. by engineers Colin Chapman and Colin Dare, both graduates of University College, London, in 1952. The four letters in the middle of the logo stand for the initials of company founder, Anthony Colin Bruce Chapman.

When reading ‘Type 72′, the die hard Formula 1 fans will inevitably think about Lotus most successful F1 car of all time that made furore with twenty Grand Prix wins between 1970 and 1975. To honor these achievements Lotus has released the Exige S Type 72 Special Edition. The British car maker will be producing twenty units for the UK, a further twenty units for the European mainland and a limited run of cars in Japan and selected markets around the world. To draw even more attention, the colour scheme of the Exige S Type 72 equals the famous and easily recognizable black and gold livery and is finished by the same person who painted racing cars for Team Lotus. With a total weight of just 935kg (2061lbs) and a Type 72’s supercharged engine producing 240bhp a sprint from standstill […]