Lola Cars

Lola Cars
(Lola Group)

Type	Auto racing design and production
Founded	1958
Founder(s)	Eric Broadley
Headquarters	Huntingdon, England, United Kingdom
Owner(s)	Martin Birrane
Divisions	Lola Composites Lola Special Projects Lola Aylings (defunct)
Website	http://www.lola-group.com

Lola Cars International Ltd. is a racing car engineering company founded in 1958 by Eric Broadley and based in Huntingdon, England. Lola Cars started by building small front-engined sports cars, and branched out into Formula Junior cars before diversifying into one of the oldest and largest manufacturers of racing cars in the world. Lola was acquired by Martin Birrane in 1998 after the unsuccessful Lola MasterCard attempt at Formula One.

Lola Cars is a member of the Lola Group, which combines former rowing boat manufacturer Lola Aylings and Lola Composites, who specialize in carbon fibre production.

Sports cars

Lola's first prototype, built in 1958

A Lola T600 IMSA Grand Touring Prototype from 1982.

A Lola-built Nissan R90CK Group C sports car at the DAMC 05 Oldtimer Festival Nürburgring.

An MG-Lola EX257 Le Mans prototype.

Early days - the 1960s

Lola was one of the top chassis suppliers in sports car racing in the 1960s. After his small front-engined sports cars and various single-seaters, Broadley designed a Lola coupe fitted with the Ford V8 engine. Ford took a keen interest in this and paid Broadley to put the company on hold for two years and merge his ideas with Roy Lunn's work, giving rise to the Ford GT40. Broadley managed to release himself from this contract after a year and started developing his own cars again, starting off in sports cars with the Lola T70 and its successors (T16x, T22x) which were used successfully all over the world from the World Endurance Championship to the CanAm series, until 1973. Recently, Lola announced that a new batch of T70 coupés, to the original specifications, will be released. These will be homologated for historic racing and there is talk of a one-make series for the cars.

The 1970s

Various Group 6 sports cars including the T212 and T28x/29x/38x/39x series were also built, competing with Chevron, March and others. Alain de Cadenet's Le Mans 'specials' tended to be based on Lola technology.

Lola (with rebodied Formula 5000 cars) dominated the CanAm sports car series when it was revived in the late 1970s, but many motorsports fans do not consider the single-seater Formula 5000-based cars from this era to be true sports cars, despite their full bodywork and enclosed wheel-wells.

The 1980s and early 1990s

Lola introduced the T600/T610 range for IMSA GTP racing in the early 1980s - these were fitted with a range of engines including Cosworth, Mazda and Chevrolet, as well as the novel Polimotor engine built using composite materials. Derivatives of this car were successful for some time in IMSA and Group C racing. Later Lola Group C and GTP cars tended to be built specifically for manufacturer programmes, specifically the later Nissan Group C entries and the Chevrolet Corvette GTP program. Lola also built a car for the 3.5 L Group C formula, the T92/10, but the championship collapsed before this could be fully developed.

The late 1990s and 2000s

More recently, Lola has produced a range of sports cars for Le Mans-style racing starting with the B98/10, which was successful in the European market but less so in the USA. The B2K/10, with its additional central headlight reminiscent of a cyclops or a locomotive was more notable for its looks than its performance. While Lola has had limited success in the top class of the sport versus factory cars like the BMW V12 LMR and Audi R8, Lola has enjoyed periods of dominance in the second class (formerly LMP675, now LMP2), including championship class victories in the American Le Mans Series, although this has been threatened in the ALMS LMP2 by works-supported entries from Acura and Porsche.

A dedicated LMP675 car was built for MG in 2001, powered by a two-litre four-cylinder AER turbocharged engine. This was entered at Le Mans by the works team as the MG-Lola EX257, and was also run as the Lola B01/60 by private entrants. Later developments of this car have been fitted with assorted small V8s and the chassis was developed into recent customer LMP1 and LMP2 chassis.

An updated version of the Lola LMP2 came in 2005 with the introduction of the Lola B05/40 (also known as the MG-Lola EX264/265). It quickly became a contender in LMP2 by taking class honors in 2005 and 2006 at Le Mans with Ray Mallock Limited. It also earned several class wins in the American Le Mans Series in 2005 and 2006 with Intersport Racing, including a second-place overall finish in the 2006 12 Hours of Sebring. In 2007, extensive updates were made to the chassis, to accommodate the all-new Acura powerplant run by Fernandez Racing. In addition, an essentially brand new LMP2 prototype, the B07/40, was built to house the new AER-based Mazda engine. This new version is being run exclusively in the U.S. by B-K Motorsports.

Lola also updated its LMP1 challenger in 2006 with the introduction of the B06/10. The car was run in the American Le Mans Series by Dyson Racing and in the Le Mans Series and the 24 Hours of Le Mans by UK-based Chamberlain-Synergy Racing. Chamberlain continued to run the machine in 2007 and 2008, while the former Dyson cars have been run off and on in the ALMS by Cytosport Racing and Intersport Racing. As with its LMP2 program, the 2007 calendar year saw Lola introduce further upgrades with the debut of the B07/10, which saw action in the Le Mans Series and the 24 Hours of Le Mans with Charouz Racing and the Swiss Spirit team (using the same engine as the Audi R8).

Lola (in association with Tracy Krohn) took over the Multimatic franchise in Grand-Am'sDaytona Prototype category in 2007. Krohn used his Riley cars at the 24 Hours of Daytona in 2008 but switched to the new cars later in the season.

Lola also introduced a pair of closed-cockpit Le Mans Prototypes in 2008, the first of which is the B08/60 running in the P1 category. The first B08/60 was raced by the Charouz team (with assistance from Prodrive) and featured an Aston-Martin V12 engine to GT1 specification.

The B08/80 built to P2 regulations was first raced by Sebah Racing (and Speedy Racing in the 2008 Le Mans 24 Hours) and continued racing in the 2009 and 2010 seasons.

Current projects

It was announced on 21 July 2010 that Lola would be building the B11/40 to comply with the new 2011 LMP2 regulations. The car is a Carbon fibre open-top monocoque race car features an all-carbon bodykit, quick-release removable rear bodywork which includes a stabilization fin on the engine cover which is a safety requirement of the new regulations.^[1]

Formula One

Lola resisted making a 'works' Formula One entry for many years, being content to construct cars on behalf of other entrants. Lola's first works entry in 1997 led directly to the financial ruin of the company.

Bowmaker and Parnell

Lola made its first foray into Formula One in 1962, supplying Lola Mk4 cars to Reg Parnell's Bowmaker-Yeoman Racing Team, with John Surtees and Roy Salvadori as drivers. A measure of success was immediate, with Surtees's car claiming pole position in its first World Championship race, but although points were often scored, wins in Championship Grands Prix eluded the team. After Bowmaker's withdrawal, Parnell continued to run the cars privately. Privateer Bob Anderson gave the Mk4 its last victory, in the non-Championship 1963 Rome Grand Prix. Consistency, however, was not to be found, and after only two seasons, Lola abandoned Formula One cars for the time being.

The "Hondola" Honda RA300

In 1967, Lola assisted Honda Racing and John Surtees with the design of their F1 car. The overweight chassis design by the engine-specialists from Honda was abandoned, and a Lola Indianapolis monocoque used as the basis for a Honda-engined car. The resultant Honda RA300 was unofficially called the "Hondola" by the press, and was sufficiently light and powerful to win the 1967 Italian Grand Prix.

BMW Formula Two cars

A number of Lola-built BMW F2 cars were subsequently entered in the F2 class of the German Grand Prix at about this time.

Embassy-Hill

Towards the end of his long career, Graham Hill found it difficult to attract works drives; with a view to both finding a drive and a future as a team owner he established his own team backed by the Embassy cigarette brand. After an unsuccessful 1973 with a customer Shadow the team commissioned its own cars from Lola. The T370 was largely based on F5000 practice, and looked similar to Lola's F5000 offerings, although it sported an extremely large airbox. The car was developed by Andy Smallman into the Hill GH-1 in 1975, but the team's first in-house design, the GH-2, remained unraced when Hill, Smallman, Tony Brise and several other team personnel were killed in an air crash in November 1975.

Team Haas Lola/Beatrice

The Haas-Beatrice-Lola F1 programme was extremely promising, funded by a large American industrial conglomerate and run by the highly experienced Teddy Mayer, with the promise of works Ford power, but it flattered to deceive. The handsome car, designed mostly by Neil Oatley, was barely a Lola; the name was used largely because Haas was Lola's US concessionaire although Broadley had some involvement with the car. Alan Jones was tempted out of retirement to drive it in F1 races towards the end of the 1985 season, with Patrick Tambay joining in a second car for 1986. A works Ford-Cosworth turbocharged engine was promised, but this did not materialise until 1986 and old Hart four cylinder units were used. Car, engine, drivers and sponsors were all troublesome and the team folded after the 1986 season with most of its assets (including the factory) being sold to Bernie Ecclestone. At one point during the season, Ecclestone informed the Beatrice/Haas/Lola team that "his driver" (Patrese) would be in the car at the next meeting; Ecclestone was primarily interested in acquiring the Ford engines as a replacement for the BMW units in his Brabhams but the manufacturer vetoed this, offering the engines to Benetton instead. He used the team's factory to build the ill-fated Alfa Romeo "ProCar" (a series for "silhouette" touring cars with F1-style mechanicals and engines).

Larrousse-Calmels

The Larrousse-Calmels programme was initially much lower-key than the previous effort. Starting from a simple Cosworth-powered car based on Lola's F3000 technologies, the French team built up a steady reputation in normally-aspirated F1 from 1987 on. They attracted Lamborghini V12 power for 1989 and once the Chris Murphy-designed car was on stream, scored some good results with Éric Bernard and Aguri Suzuki. The team experienced some problems after Didier Calmels' arrest for the murder of his wife, but continued at a slightly lower key with Cosworth power again. Unfortunately due to irregularities with the team's F1 entry in 1990 (the cars were entered as Larrousses but were really Lolas) they lost all their constructors' points - which promoted the politically well-connected Ligier outfit into a position in the constructors' championship that gave them significant FIA benefits.

Scuderia Italia

The Scuderia Italia programme was something of a disaster from the start. The team had done reasonably well with Dallara chassis before, but turned to Lola for 1993. Powered by customer Ferrari engines, both engine and car seemed to be well off the pace and Michele Alboreto and Luca Badoer struggled to even qualify for races. Badoer finished 7th in the 1993 San Marino Grand Prix, a race of high attrition, to score the best Lola result of the season. The team withdrew from F1 before the end of the season and partly merged with Minardi for 1994.

The unraced test cars

Lola built a number of Cosworth V8 powered test cars in 1994-5, with rumours of a Havoline-funded quasi-works Ford team. The rumour was that Cosworth V12s badged Jaguar would go to Benetton and Lola would inherit the Zetec V8. Allan McNish did much of the test driving, but as this was a period of instability in the F1 rules little was achieved.

The MasterCard Works Programme

Lola had originally intended to enter Formula One in their own right in 1998, but pressure from main sponsor MasterCard caused Lola to debut its new car one year early, in 1997. The sponsorship model was curious, linked both to MasterCard membership of a 'club', and to results - something a first-year F1 team often finds hard to achieve. A custom-built V10 engine from Al Melling was going to be fitted to the cars, which initially started racing fitted with underpowered Ford Cosworth ED V8s.

The cars had a lot of problems, the worst being aerodynamics - they had never even been wind-tunnel tested when they arrived in Australia, which by that point in time was unthinkable. The car was fundamentally flawed, and the lack of wind-tunnel time had made it even more of a joke. Despite the fact of the car's problems, the team was confident that it could finish ahead of some of the other teams. The results were disastrous, the cars were well off the pace and were no faster than Lola's Formula 3000 cars. After only one race the sponsors pulled out; the team turned up for the second race in Brazil but the cars did not turn a wheel and that was the end of the MasterCard-Lola story. Shortly afterwards, the entire Lola Car Company went into receivership. The company was saved through the purchase and cash rescue package from Martin Birrane.

Complete Formula One World Championship results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position.)

Year	Entrant/s	Chassis/	Engine	Driver/s	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	Points	WCC
1962					NED	MON	BEL	FRA	GBR	GER	ITA	USA	RSA									19	4th
	Yeoman Racing Team	Mk4 Mk4A	Climax V8	John Surtees	Ret	4	5	5	2	2	Ret	Ret	Ret
				Roy Salvadori	Ret	Ret		Ret	Ret	Ret	Ret		Ret
1963					MON	BEL	NED	FRA	GBR	GER	ITA	USA	MEX	RSA								0	NC
	Reg Parnell Racing	Mk4 Mk4A	Climax V8	Maurice Trintignant	Ret
				Chris Amon	DNS	Ret	Ret	7	7	Ret	DNS
				Lucien Bianchi		Ret
				Masten Gregory					Ret	11			Ret
				Mike Hailwood					8
	Tim Parnell	Mk4	Climax V8	John Campbell-Jones					11
	DW Racing Enterprises	Mk4	Climax V8	Bob Anderson					12		12
1967					RSA	MON	NED	BEL	FRA	GBR	GER	CAN	ITA	USA	MEX							0	NC
	Lola Cars Ltd.	T100	BMW	Hubert Hahne							Ret
1968					RSA	ESP	MON	BEL	NED	FRA	GBR	GER	ITA	CAN	USA	MEX						0	NC
	Lola Cars Ltd.	T100	BMW	Hubert Hahne								10
1974					ARG	BRA	RSA	ESP	BEL	MON	SWE	NED	FRA	GBR	GER	AUT	ITA	CAN	USA			1	12th
	Embassy Hill	T370	Ford Cosworth DFV	Graham Hill	Ret	11	12	Ret	8	7	6	Ret	13	13	9	12	8	14	8
				Guy Edwards	11	Ret		DNQ	12	8	7	Ret	15	DNS	DNQ
				Rolf Stommelen												Ret	Ret	11	12
1975					ARG	BRA	RSA	ESP	MON	BEL	SWE	NED	FRA	GBR	GER	AUT	ITA	USA				0	NC
	Embassy Hill	T370 T371	Ford Cosworth DFV	Graham Hill	10	12	DNQ
				Rolf Stommelen	13	14	7
1985					BRA	POR	SMR	MON	CAN	DET	FRA	GBR	GER	AUT	NED	ITA	BEL	EUR	RSA	AUS		0	NC
	Team Haas	THL-1	Hart S4 (t/c)	Alan Jones												Ret		Ret	DNS	Ret
1986					BRA	ESP	SMR	MON	BEL	CAN	DET	FRA	GBR	GER	HUN	AUT	ITA	POR	MEX	AUS		6	8th
	Team Haas	THL-2	Ford V6 (t/c) Hart S4 (t/c)	Alan Jones	Ret	Ret	Ret	Ret	11	10	Ret	Ret	Ret	9	Ret	4	6	Ret	Ret	Ret
				Patrick Tambay	Ret	8	Ret	Ret	Ret	DNS		Ret	Ret	8	7	5	Ret	NC	Ret	NC
				Eddie Cheever							Ret
1987					BRA	SMR	BEL	MON	DET	FRA	GBR	GER	HUN	AUT	ITA	POR	ESP	MEX	JPN	AUS		3	9th
	Larrousse Calmels	LC87	Ford Cosworth DFZ	Yannick Dalmas														9	14	5
				Philippe Alliot		10	8	Ret	Ret	Ret	Ret	6	Ret	12	Ret	Ret	6	6	Ret	Ret
1988					BRA	SMR	MON	MEX	CAN	DET	FRA	GBR	GER	HUN	BEL	ITA	POR	ESP	JPN	AUS		0	NC
	Larrousse Calmels	LC88	Ford Cosworth DFZ	Yannick Dalmas	Ret	12	7	9	DNQ	7	13	13	19	9	Ret	Ret	Ret	11
				Philippe Alliot	Ret	17	Ret	Ret	10	Ret	Ret	14	Ret	12	9	Ret	Ret	14	9	10
				Aguri Suzuki															16
				Pierre-Henri Raphanel																DNQ
1989					BRA	SMR	MON	MEX	USA	CAN	FRA	GBR	GER	HUN	BEL	ITA	POR	ESP	JPN	AUS		1	15th
	Equipe Larrousse	LC88B LC89	Lamborghini V12	Philippe Alliot	12	Ret	Ret	Ret	Ret	Ret	Ret	Ret	Ret	DNPQ	16	Ret	9	6	Ret	Ret
				Yannick Dalmas	DNQ	Ret	DNQ	DNQ	DNQ	DNQ
				Éric Bernard							11	Ret
				Michele Alboreto									Ret	Ret	Ret	Ret	11	DNPQ	DNQ	DNPQ
1990					USA	BRA	SMR	MON	CAN	MEX	FRA	GBR	GER	HUN	BEL	ITA	POR	ESP	JPN	AUS		11	6th
	Espo Larrousse F1	LC89B LC90	Lamborghini V12	Éric Bernard	8	Ret	13	6	9	Ret	8	4	Ret	6	9	Ret	Ret	Ret	Ret	Ret
				Aguri Suzuki	Ret	Ret	Ret	Ret	12	Ret	7	6	Ret	Ret	Ret	Ret	14	6	3	Ret
1991					USA	BRA	SMR	MON	CAN	MEX	FRA	GBR	GER	HUN	BEL	ITA	POR	ESP	JPN	AUS		2	11th
	Larrousse	LC91	Ford Cosworth DFR	Éric Bernard	Ret	Ret	9	Ret	6	Ret	Ret	Ret	Ret	Ret	Ret	DNQ	Ret	DNQ
				Aguri Suzuki	6	Ret	Ret	Ret	Ret	Ret	Ret	Ret	Ret	Ret	DNQ	DNQ	Ret	DNQ	Ret	DNQ
				Bertrand Gachot																DNQ
1993					RSA	BRA	EUR	SMR	ESP	MON	CAN	FRA	GBR	GER	HUN	BEL	ITA	POR	JPN	AUS		0	NC
	Scuderia Italia	T93/30	Ferrari V12	Michele Alboreto	Ret	11	11	DNQ	DNQ	Ret	DNQ	DNQ	DNQ	16	Ret	14	Ret	Ret
				Luca Badoer	Ret	12	DNQ	7	Ret	DNQ	15	Ret	Ret	Ret	Ret	13	10	14
1997					AUS	BRA	ARG	SMR	MON	ESP	CAN	FRA	GBR	GER	HUN	BEL	ITA	AUT	LUX	JPN	EUR	0	NC
	MasterCard Lola	T97/30	Ford Zetec-R V8	Vincenzo Sospiri	DNQ	DNP
				Ricardo Rosset	DNQ	DNP

Planned 2010 F1 project

On April 22, 2009, Lola announced on its website that "Lola Group has commenced a major project comprising a full technical, operational and financial evaluation aimed at developing a car to compete in the FIA Formula One World Championship".^[2]

Lola was one of several teams to lodge an entry with the FIA for the 2010 Formula One World Championship.^[3] On June 17, however, the company abandoned its plans to return to F1 after failing to secure a place on the initial 2010 entry list.^[4]

Formula Two / Formula 3000 / A1GP

After their limited success in the 1960s with Formula One, Lola turned its attentions primarily to sports cars but also to Formula Two, where Lola became the works team for BMW. As the years went on, Lola had somewhat more success in Formula Two than it ever had in Formula One, although as March and later Ralt established themselves, Lola's involvement in the category became intermittent and less successful. The final Lola F2 was in fact derived from a Ralt design - the Ralt RT2 became the Toleman TG280, which Toleman licensed to Lola who productionised it as the T850. When Formula Two became Formula 3000 in 1986, Lola made a "false start" with a car based on their significantly larger Indycar chassis; from 1986 they returned with a bespoke F3000 design and the cars enjoyed significant success for the next few years, competing with Ralt and Reynard, although Reynard effectively wiped the others out of the market. In 1996 the International Formula 3000 Championship became a one-make series and Lola was awarded the contract by the FIA to build the Lola T96/50 chassis for was all teams competing in the championship. The contract which was renewed in 1999 (Lola B99/50) and 2002 (Lola B02/50) before International F3000 was replaced by GP2 and Lola lost the bid to build the new chassis. Formula Nippon ran mixed grids of cars (with Reynard dominating) until 2003, when Lola was awarded that contract as well. The Euroseries 3000 used the B02/50 from 2007 to 2009, while the ex-A1GP B05/52 chassis was introduced in 2009.

Lola succeeded in winning the largest-ever contract for single-seater racing cars in 2005, winning the contract for the A1 Grand Prix series. Lola built 50 identical Zytek V8-powered A1 Grand Prix cars which were leased to the national franchisees (although the teams' spare cars were recalled part-way through the 2005 season to be used for spare parts); development work on these is strictly prohibited. The cars are approximately at the F3000 level of technology and provide close, spectacular racing. The contract concern the three first seasons of the racing series between 2005 and 2008.

Formula 5000

A Lola T332 Formula 5000 car.

In the late 1960s, the SCCA's Formula A series evolved into Formula 5000 and attracted the attention of more professional drivers and teams. It was intended to be a cheap, high-powered open-wheeled racing series using relatively cheap tuned stock-block V8 engines. Lola entered this market as well, and after some interesting struggles with McLaren, Team Surtees and Chevron, came to dominate the later years of the series, producing the bulk of Formula 5000 cars throughout the 1970s - these competed in F5000 in Europe, the USA and Australasia. The cars continued when the CanAm series was revived using Formula 5000 cars as the base. Lola made a seamless switch into this kind of "sports car racing", and won five consecutive Can-Am championships.

USAC/CART/Champ Car

Al Unser Sr. won the 1978 Indianapolis 500 in this Lola T500-Cosworth.

A Lola champ car driven by Rodger Ward in the 1966 Indianapolis 500

A Lola T9100 driven by Bobby Rahal in 1991

Lola had built chassis for the Indianapolis 500 as early as the 1960s -- Graham Hill had won the 1966 Indianapolis 500 in a Lola, and Jackie Stewart raced a four wheel drive Lola there. Al Unser, Sr. won the 1978 Indianapolis 500 race in a modified Lola chassis. However, the marque did not make a fully fledged attack on the American Open wheel market until the mid 1980s.

The revived CanAm was a fading series which collapsed in 1986, prompting Lola to move its focus to CART and the Indianapolis 500 beginning in 1985. Once again, Lola showed its ability to succeed in all motorsports outside of Formula One, pushing March down to one team for the 1990 CART season, and out of the series altogether by 1991. Six years after its full-time entrance into Indycar racing, Lola triumphed at Indy again, as the winning car for Arie Luyendyk in the 1990 Indianapolis 500. The rivalry between Lola and Reynard continued in the United States as well as the European F3000 series. Reynard entered CART in 1994 and eventually almost completely displaced Lola from the market. By 1998 only the backmarker Davis Racing team was utilizing the Lola chassis, with Penske Racing using their own chassis, Newman/Haas Racing using the new Swift Chassis and all others running Reynards. However, when Penske Racing elected to abandon their proprietary chassis in 1999, they elected to run Lolas and to continue the development work on them. Newman/Haas and Chip Ganassi Racing switched to Lolas in running the cars the following year. By 2001 the field was evenly split between the two cars. Reynard's financial trouble and the fact that many of the top teams running the Reynard switched to the Indy Racing League IndyCar Series in 2002 and 2003 meant that development on the Reynard largely ceased, and by 2003 Lola was the only remaining manufacturer building new chassis for the Champ Car series. For the 2007 season, Champ Car switched to a spec Panoz chassis, the DP01, as its new chassis used by all competitors. The previous Lola, the B03/00, had been in the series since the 2003 season.

Lola also produced the spec chassis for the CART Indy Lights developmental series that was used from 1993 to 2001, replacing the previous car that was essentially a modified March 85B Formula 3000 car.

Formula 3

In Formula 3, Lola partnered with Dome of Japan to produce a chassis since 2003. There they are competing with long-established Dallara, the two makers being among the last specialty race-car makers left in Europe. The partnership was broken for 2005, with Lola building their own chassis, which won its debut in the British series, but the Dallara near-monopoly has proven tough to displace.

World Rally

The Lancer WRC04 with the 4G63 engine was mounted to a 5-speed semi-automatic transmission and a new all-wheel drive system co-developed by Ricardo Consulting Engineers and Mitsubishi Motors Motorsports (MMSP). The bodywork was subjected to extensive aerodynamic testing at Lola Cars' wind tunnel and significant changes to body were made after that.

Others

Lola has built chassis for a wide range of minor categories over the years, as a means of training new designers and keeping the works occupied in between major programmes. Formula Atlantic cars tended to be derived from F2 and F3 designs, and other Lolas have raced in Formula Ford, Sports 2000, Formula Super Vee and many other categories, often designed by people who went on to successful careers elsewhere in the sport -- Patrick Head of Williams fame designed his first cars for Broadley. There was not much profit margin in the minor-formulae cars, which tended to be built during the summer when the factory was otherwise quiet (most senior-formulae cars are built over the winter in the off-season) - but they kept staff occupied, gave designers somewhere to learn, and established relationships with drivers at early stages of their careers.

Naming scheme

At the time of Lola's creation, their sports cars and formula cars followed a naming scheme of being numbered in order of construction, and preceded by the term Mark (Mk1 through Mk6). However in 1964, the designations were altered to become Type (marked as simply T), with the first digit or two designating what type of car, and the final digit designating a variant of that car. This continued until 1986 when the numbering scheme was slightly altered. The T would remain, yet the next two digits would designate the year of original design, and the next two would designate what type of car it was. The final digit would again denote variants of that design. This was again slightly altered in 1998, with the T being replaced by a B, in honor of Lola's owner Martin Birrane. The numbering system would however remain the same.^[5]

Since employing the new system in 1986, the final two digits stand for the following types of cars:

• /00 - CART & Champ Car
• /10 - Group C & IMSA GTP, Le Mans Prototype SR1, LMP900, and LMP1 classes
• /20 - Indy Lights
• /30 - Formula One, later replaced by Formula Three
• /40 - Le Mans Prototype SR2 and LMP2 classes
• /50 - Formula 3000 & Formula Nippon
• /60 - Le Mans Prototype LMP675 class, later LMP1 Coupes
• /70 - Mexican Formula 3000, later touring cars, now Daytona Prototypes
• /80 - Le Mans Prototype LMP2 Coupes
• /90 - Sports 2000

Therefore, a car like the T92/10 would be a 1992 Group C car, and the B03/00 would be a 2003 Champ Car chassis.

Note that the former Lola A1GP cars currently do not have a designation that matches this scheme, and are marked simply as Lola A1GP. The evolution of this car used in the Euroseries 3000 and its immediate succesor AutoGP was given the name B0552.

References

External links

• Lola Group
• Lola Heritage - Official Lola chassis index and history

Lola Formula One cars Lola (1962–1968): Mk4 | Mk4A | T100 | T102 Honda (1968): RA300 | RA301 Embassy-Hill (1974–1975): T370 | T371 Haas Lola (1985–1986): THL1 | THL2 Larrousse (1987–1991): LC87 | LC88 | LC88B | LC89 | LC90 | LC91 BMS Scuderia Italia (1993): T93/30 MasterCard Lola (1997): T97/30 Test cars: T95/30

Lola sports cars Early Projects (1958–1968) Mk1 | Mk6 | T70 Group 7 / Can Am (1967–1974) T120 | T160 | T220 | T260 | T310 Group 5 / Group 6 (1970–1981) T210 | T280 | T290 | T380 | T390 | T600 Sports 2000 (1976–2007) T490 | T590 | T86/90 | T87/90 | T88/90 | T89/90 | T90/90 | T91/90 | B07/90 Can Am (1977–1986) T332CS | T333CS | T530 Group C / GTP (1982–1992) T385 | T600 | T610 | T710 | T810 | T86/10 | T89/10 | T90/10 | T92/10 LMP / SR (1998–present) B98/10 | B2K/10 | B2K/40 | B01/60 | B05/40 | B06/10 | B08/60 | B08/80 | B09/60 | B10/60 | B11/40 Daytona Prototype (2008–present) B08/70

Lola formula cars Formula Junior (1960–1963) Mk2 | Mk3 | Mk5 Formula One (1962–1997) Lola Formula One cars Formula Two (1964–1984) T54/T55 | T60 | T100 | T240 | T550 | T850 Formula Three (1964-present) T53 | T60 | T350/T360 | T470 | T570 | T670 | T770 | T870 | F106 | B05/30 | B06/30 | B07/30 Indycar / Champ Car (1965–2006) T80 | T90 | T150 | T500 | T700 | T800 | T900 | T86/00 | T87/00 | T88/00 | T89/00 | T90/00 | T91/00 | T92/00 | T93/00 | T94/00 | T95/00 | T96/00 | T97/00 | B98/00 | B98/00 | B99/00 | B2K/00 | B01/00 | B02/00 Formula 5000 (1968–1978) T140 | T190 | T300 | T330 | T332 | T400 | T430 Formula Ford (1970–1984) T200 | T340 | T440 | T540 | T580 | T640 | T680 | Formula Vee/Super Vee (1971–1979) T250 | T320 | T620 | T720 Formula Atlantic / Formula B (1972–1981) T242 | T360 | T460 | T480 | T560 | T760 | T860 Formula Renault (1974–1977) T410 | T510 Formula 3000 / Formula Nippon (1985–present) T950 | T86/50 | T87/50 | T88/50 | T89/50 | T90/50 | T91/50 | T92/50 | T93/50 | T94/50 | T95/50 | T96/50 | B99/50 | B02/50 | B06/51 Indy Lights (1993–1997) T93/20 | T94/20 | T95/20 | T96/20 | T97/20 Mexican F3000 (1996) Lola T96/70 A1 Grand Prix (2005–2008) A1GP car Auto GP (2010–present) Lola B05/52