Lotus 22

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The Lotus 22 was a racing car built by Lotus cars in 1962 and a total of 77 cars were built. It was developed from the 1962 Lotus 20, with the major differences that it had disk brakes all round, had a top link to the rear suspension, and were mainly dry sumped.

The 22 is a single seat race car primarily for the Formula Junior series and most had a 1100cc Cosworth MAE engine with about 100hp. However,7 of the Lotus 22's built were sold with the then newly introduced 1500cc Lotus Twin-Cam engine then powering the just introduced Lotus Elan sports car, but these were ineligible for Formula Junior. The 22 was very successful and the works car driven by Peter Arundell won nearly 75% of the races for the FIA Formula Junior european championship in 1962. The works cars also often had Jim Clark and other Lotus Formula One drivers behind the wheel. The car was also successful in the following year, 1963, the nadir of FJr and up against the new Lotus 27 a full monocoque car the 22 won most of the races early in the season before finally being overtaken by the new technology for the championship.

The 22 chassis also later was reintroduced several times, although modified, as other "new" Lotus models becoming first the Lotus 31 F3 car in 1964 and then most famously the famous Lotus 51 in 1967 the first Formula Ford race car created for the Jim Russell racing school in England.

Also the Lotus 22 was the car from which the Lotus 23 was derived being essentially a two seat 22 widened in the middle but using the same suspension front/engine bay/suspension rear/gearbox as the 22 did. The 23's famous introduction at the legendary Nurburgring 1962 driven by Jim Clark where he lead many laps in the tiny 1,000 pound 23 with only 1500cc engine against cars with many times the displacement at one point leading by a minute or more.

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