His death at Hockenheim in 1968 was met with disbelief and incredulity. Countless drivers perished on the dangerous twisty, often remote grand prix courses with little more protection than inflammable hay bales! Sadly, Jim Clark was one of them. Whilst the cars drove at death defying speeds, life as a driver and spectator became ever more hazardous. And, Formula One had changed forever and not always for the better. In 1965, he and his Lotus 25 returned to land the double - a constructor’s and driver’s championship, with a sweet Indianapolis 500 victory in between for good measure.Ĭlark and this Lotus became the perfect embodiment of man and machine in the brave new world of the 1960s where engineers were breaking new ground in motor sport and aerospace. He would have been champion in 1964, had his Climax engine not blown within sight of the finish line in the final race of the Season.

Combined with the lightweight Coventry Climax engine and a master craftsman at the wheel, the Ferrari, Maserati and Mercedes cars never stood a chance.Ĭlark won 14 races in 1963 and swept all before him to win the Formula One championship. The agile, wasp like Lotus with its disc brakes, superb handling, derived from an even weight distribution across front and rear, was able to corner at speeds that were previously believed impossible. In one fell swoop, the big lumbering behemoths of the inter-war and post-WWII years were consigned to the scrap heap. But after the first Grand Prix of the 1963 season, the laughter turned to panic as Clark’s Lotus left the rest of the field trailing in his slipstream.

This Lotus Climax had a tubular monocoque chassis, ultra-lightweight glass fibre body and the engine was in the rear, behind the driver!Īt first the other big, well-funded teams laughed at the latest revolutionary ‘Garagista’ design - a name coined for the underfunded but plucky and creative British race teams that operated their workshops out of small workshops and lock-ups up and down the land. Chapman turned Formula One of his day on its head with his revolutionary designs. … But it was his partnership with the design genius, Colin Chapman, that put the pair of them on the podium and roared them into the history books.

Lotus 25 replica