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Thursday 12 November 2020

1959 Lotus 16

This car took part in the Allcomers Scratch Race at the Vintage Sports Car Club's Richard Seaman Memorial Trophies meeting at Oulton Park in June 1973.

It's the 1959 Lotus 16 of John Roberts, a car previously campaigned in historic racing by Bill Wilks. The first Grand Prix race for the Lotus 16 was the 1958 French Grand Prix where the car's 1,964cc Coventry Climax engine proved to be severely underpowered for the very fast Reims circuit and Graham Hill retired the car on lap 19 with an overheating engine. By 1959 the car was fitted with the 2,467cc Coventry Climax FPF engine, but the front-engined cars were now outclassed by the rear-engined ones and the Lotus 16 never achieved great success, the best efforts being Innes Ireland's fourth place in the Dutch Grand Prix and fifth place in the USA Grand Prix. Eight of the cars were built and John Roberts' car is Chassis 365,
 

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