1965 Lotus 30

I took this photo of Jim Clark in his Lotus 30 on the approach to Lodge Corner in the early stages of the RAC Tourist Trophy Race at Oulton Park in May 1965.

The race was scheduled to be run in two parts, each part lasting for 2 hours with the winner decided by the aggregate of the two parts. The Lotus 30 was Colin Chapman's first attempt to build a larger displacement car and usually had a 4.7 litre Ford V8 engine, though the programme of this event gives the capacity as 5.3 litres. Jim Clark finished the first part in a lowly 16th place and retired just over halfway through the second part with transmission problems.

1964 Lotus 30

This car competed in the World Sport Car Masters race at the Silverstone Classic meeting in July 2010.

It's the 1964 Lotus 30 of Matthew Watts, and according to the programme of the event has a 5300cc engine. The Lotus 30 had a backbone chassis similar to that of the Lotus Elan instead of the space frame chassis of Colin Chapman's last sports racing car, the Lotus 19, and was intended to compete in Can AM racing. Lotus engineer and designer Len Terry refused to have anything to do with the car because he considered that the backbone chassis would not give sufficient torsional stiffness, and except for some early encouraging results at the hands of Jim Clark the car wasn't a success. The Lotus 30 was originally built with a Ford 289 cu in (4,727cc) engine.