1960 Lotus 18

I took this photograph at the Donington Park Museum in May 1989.

It's a 1960 Lotus 18 that Stirling Moss, driving for Rob Walker's team, campaigned in 1960 the last year of the 2½ litre Formula, and in 1961 the first year of the 1½ litre Formula. In 1960 the car had a 2,497cc 4-cylinder inline Coventry Climax FPF engine and Stirling Moss won the Monaco Grand Prix, and also the last Grand Prix of the season in the USA. In 1961 the 1,500cc version of the FPF engine was used, and this is what the 'Great Racing Cars of the Donington Collection' book says about that season:

'Ferrari were well-prepared for the start of the new Formula with their F2-based V6 engines and true to form they dominated the 1961 season and won the Constructors’ Championship. Only one man and one car surpassed the Ferraris during the year, and that was the incomparable Stirling Moss doing his best at the wheel of Walker’s underpowered and now obsolete Lotus 18. He scored classic victories  in the Monaco and German GPs on the two most testing circuits in the series. Of Monaco he wrote:

“I said to myself: Well I may only have 80 per cent of the Ferrari’s power behind me, but let’s make them go; make them go the whole race…. When I had finished I could not recall any point in 90 or so of the 100 laps where I had taken a corner at less than my limit or had braked earlier for it than I could….”.

At the Nürburgring he gambled on using Dunlop D12 wet-weather tyres on a partially damp track, and the gamble paid off. By this time the Walker 18 had been modified with more streamlined ‘type 21’ bodywork and revised rear suspension, and at the close of the season Walker had Moss driving another 18/21 fitted with the new Coventry-Climax V8 engine.'