Lotus 23B & Lister Jaguar

I took this photograph during qualifying for the Gentlemen Drivers Sports Racing Challenge race at the Gold Cup meeting at Oulton Park in August 2005.

Leading in the 1962 Lotus 23B is Mike Doyle, closely followed by Crispin Harris in his 1958 Lister Jaguar. The Lotus 23 was introduced in 1962 to compete in the smaller classes of sports car  racing and was used with engines with capacities ranging from from 750cc up to 1600cc. The programme of the event shows this car as having a 1,598cc engine, presumably the Ford Kent derived 4-cylinder inline Cosworth unit. It proved to be an extremely successful car and about 130 examples of the Lotus 23, 23B and 23C were produced between 1962 and 1963. The Lister Jaguar has the 3,781cc version of the Jaguar XK6 engine. Brian Lister started producing sports cars in 1954 first with an MG engine and later with a Bristol engine, but he had the most success with the 1957 car which used the Jaguar D-type engine. The first version of this car was known at the time as a Lister-Jaguar, but after the 1959 car was given a smoother aerodynamic body designed by Frank Costin (and designed to use the Chevrolet Corvette powerplant) the more bulbous earlier car became known as the Lister Knobbly.