1968 Lotus 49B

This is one of the photographs I took on a visit to the Donington Park Museum in October 1989.

It's a 1968 Lotus 49B and the book 'Great Racing Cars of the Donington Collection' says this about it:

'Lotus-powered-by-Ford

dawn of a new domination

Seven successive World Championship titles - from 1968 to 1974 – have so far been won using Cosworth-Ford V8 Formula 1 engines. In that period these Northampton-built Keith Duckworth–designed units have become the most numerous in Grand Prix history, and have won more Championship-qualifying events and more Formula 1 races than any other engine. The Cosworth-Ford engine story began late in 1965, when Colin Chapman was casting about for a 3-litre engine to power his cars in the new Grand Prix Formula, due to start in the following year. Duckworth’s company had a wonderful success record with the Ford-based minor formulae engines, and through Chapman he admitted interest in building a Formula 1 unit. Ford of Britain came forward with £100,000 to sponsor its development, and on 4 June 1967 the first ‘FORD’ Grand Prix engines made their shattering debut in brand-new Lotus 49 cars. This was in the Dutch Grand Prix, at Zandvoort, where Graham Hill put his 49 on pole position in practice, and led for the first eleven laps before retiring with cam-drive failure in the new engine. Then his team-mate Jim Clark took over, and he built up an ever-increasing lead, at record-breaking speeds, to score a fairy-tale win first time out. The die was cast. The Lotus-Fords took pole position in every one of the eight remaining events run that season, and Clark won three more of them. He failed in his bid to regain the World Championship, as chassis, engine and gearbox failures took their toll, but the new engine and Chapman’s new Maurice Phillippe-designed car had established themselves as the standard of their time. Duckworth’s engine was a neat, practical 90-degree light-alloy V8, with four valves per cylinder, twin overhead camshafts per bank and a pedigree developed from the four-cylinder Cortina-based ‘FVA’ 1600cc Formula 2 engine. The V8 was virtually two FVA blocks mounted in a common crankcase. It produced an honest 400 horsepower in its original form, and for 1968 Ford made it available to al interested customers, depriving Team Lotus of the exclusive use hey had enjoyed in that first season. McLaren and the Tyrrell Matra team confirmed orders, and with Team Lotus they shared the new season’s honours, confirming the Cosworth-Ford’s superiority. Clark won the opening race in South Africa, to set a career record of twenty-five GP wins, and then dominated the Tasman Championship in 2½ litre Lotus-Ford 49s, wearing the red-and-white livery of Lotus’ new John Player Gold Leaf tobacco sponsors. It looked a certain Jim Clark season, but in April he was killed in a trifling Formula 2 race at Hockenheim, Graham Hill bounced back for Lotus to win in Spain and at Monaco, and after a season-long struggle with Jackie Stewart in the Tyrrell Matra-Ford and the works McLaren Fords he won the final round in Mexico City to clinch his second World Drivers’ Championship and the first Constructors’ title for Lotus-Ford. Stewart won three Grand Prix races, Denny Hulme won two, Bruce McLaren himself won in Belgium and Swiss driver Jo Siffert scored probably the most popular success of the year by winning the British GP in Rob Walker’s private Lotus-Ford 49B. Phillippe took advantage of the new engine’s ability to be used as a stressed chassis member in similar style to the BRM H16. The Lotus 49’s monocoque chassis terminated abruptly behind the cockpit, leaving a vertical bulkhead to which the engine was rigidly bolted. Rear suspension was carried on the engine and gearbox assembly, and for maintenance it was possible to undo a few bolts and connections and wheel the entire rear end of the car away from the forward nacelle. In 1968 a modified version was developed, with lengthened wheelbase, revised suspension and early aerodynamic aids in the form of nose aerofoils and an upswept engine cowling. A lightweight Hewland gearbox replaced the original ZF unit, and this model became known as the Lotus 49B, winning at Monaco, Brands Hatch and Mexico City. In 1969 Jochen Rindt joined Graham Hill in the works ‘Gold Leaf’ team 49Bs. Hill won at Monaco for a staggering fifth time, and Rindt became Stewart’s closest competitor during the season. After forty-eight unsuccessful attempts he finally won his first Grand Prix, in America, where Hill crashed his car and was seriously injured. The historic old Lotus was finally retired from the front line in 1970, when the futuristic Lotus 72 came along to give Rindt his tragically posthumous World Championship title, but he drove one of the obsolete ‘49C’ cars to that exciting last corner victory at Monaco to close this chapter on a classic racing car’s supremely successful life.'

The agreement between Ford and Lotus specified that Ford had to be given one of the cars for promotional purposes, and as all the existing cars were needed for the race track Lotus built this car, chassis 49B/12, for Ford and it never actually competed in period. After it had served its purpose Ford sold the car to Donington Park's Tom Wheatcroft for his collection.