1958 Lotus 16

I took this photograph on a visit to the Donington Park museum in October 1989.

It's a 1958 Lotus 16 Grand Prix car, and the book 'Great Racing Cars of the Donington Collection' says this about it:

The Lotus 16

a proper Grand Prix car

Working from experience with the Lotus 12 and also the successful Vanwall, for whose chassis design he had been responsible, Colin Chapman introduced the complex Lotus 16 to Grand Prix racing at Reims in 1958. Frank Costin designed the new car’s body, and it was no surprise that the family resemblance to the Vanwall was unmistakable.

Chapman’s concept of the 16 was a very light car with a competitive power-to-weight ratio. The body shape was intended to reduce drag and give a high maximum speed, and the all-independent coil-spring suspension was intended to promote superior road-holding in corners. To achieve a low frontal area the Coventry-Climax engine was canted at 17 degrees to the nearside, and raked at 10½ degrees to the car’s centreline to run the propellor shaft down its left side. This allowed the driver to be seated low down beside the shaft. The drive-line was complex and the Lotus-developed gearbox which had a gearchange similar to a motor-cycle was to prove extremely troublesome – as it had in the earlier Lotus 12s.

The Lotus 16 seldom made a great impression, and its Chapman strut rear suspension – subsequently adopted on the road-going Elite – proved too efficient for the front suspension. The car tended to unstick its front wheels first, and was plagued by understeer throughout its one-and-a-half season life. Graham Hill, Innes Ireland, Cliff Allison and Alan Stacey drove the cars – Ireland putting in the best performance on his Grand Prix debut when he finished fourth in Holland.

The Donington car is No. 363 - the very first Mark 16 – and after performing nobly in historic racing events in the hands of John Le Sage it was acquired by Tom Wheatcroft in first-class condition.