Lola T70

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Lola
Lola T70 Mk III Coupe
Lola T70 Mk III Coupe
T70
Production period: 1965-1970
Class : race car
Body versions : Roadster
Coupé
Engines:
Petrol engines : 4.9-5.7 liters
(336-410 kW)
Length:
Width:
Height:
Wheelbase : 2410 mm
Empty weight : 680-860 kg

The Lola T70 was developed in 1965 by the British racing car manufacturer Lola as a two-seater racing sports car for the unlimited Group 7 sports car racing series in England and the USA. The coupé version built from 1967 onwards also enabled use in the brand world championship . The Lola T70 is considered England's most successful two-seater racing car.

Types

The first variant was the Lola T70 Spyder. In 1966 the Lola T70 Mk II Spyder appeared, which was replaced by the Lola Mk III Spyder in 1967. John Surtees was world champion in the CanAm series on Lola in 1966 , but only one race could be won against the McLaren M6A-Chevrolet the following year. The first closed variant was the Lola Mk III Coupé, which appeared in 1967; replaced by the type Mk IIIB Coupé which appeared in 1969 and was built until 1970. The T70 Mk III Coupé was also available as a street legal version. A total of 88 Lola T70s were made.

The engine used was a V8 from Chevrolet or Aston Martin , which from 1968 onwards delivered an output of 336 kW (450 hp) from around five liters of displacement at 7000 rpm. When in 1968 the rules limited the displacement of the prototypes to three liters, the sports cars built in at least 50 copies were given five liters displacement; from 1969 a minimum of 25 vehicles was built to comply with the homologation. Ford benefited from this in particular at Le Mans with the aging GT40 , but also Lola with the further developed variant T70 Mk IIIB Coupé, which came from Eric Broadley and Tony Southgate and won the Daytona 24-hour race in early 1969 . A total of 16 copies of this variant were produced between 1969 and 1970. It remained the greatest success of a T70, as Porsche consistently exploited the exception rules for small-series sports cars in the spring of 1969 with the newly designed Porsche 917 , as did Ferrari in 1970 with the Ferrari 512S .

Since they were hardly victorious and cheap to buy, T70 chassis were used in films from the 1970s, for example in Le Mans (film) , and in THX 1138 . As a kit car , the Lola T70 Mk II Coupé was manufactured in small numbers by the British manufacturer GT Developments in the 1990s.

  • Lola T70 Spyder (1965)

  • Lola T70 Mk II Spyder (1966)

  • Lola T70 Mk IIIB Coupé (1969)

  • Lola T70 Mk IIIB Coupé (1969)

Web links

Commons : Lola T70  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Harald H. Linz, Halwart Schrader : The International Automobile Encyclopedia . United Soft Media Verlag, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-8032-9876-8 (keyword Lola).
  2. ↑ Harald H. Linz, Halwart Schrader : The International Automobile Encyclopedia . United Soft Media Verlag, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-8032-9876-8 (keyword Lola).
  3. ↑ Steve Hole: AZ of Kit Cars. Haynes Publishing, 2012, ISBN 978-1-84425-677-8 , p. 114