Lotus 30

The Lotus 30 was Colin Chapman's first and only attempt to compete in the newly formed CAN AM (Group Seven) racing, a new series that set manufacturers almost no limits as to the design and performance of their vehicles.  The cars featured a Y-shaped chassis clad in a lightweight GRP body. The whole car weighed in at just around 650 Kg.

Lotus opted for a V8 engine as used in the Ford GT40. With further tuning and modification, Lotus was able to extract 350 HP from the units.

The engine was mounted in the back of the driver and coupled to a five-speed ZF gearbox. Stopping power was supplied by Girling disc brakes on all four corners. In total, 33 cars were made with numerous upgrades during the production time.

This car: Lotus 30/L7

Chassis number 7 was delivered to the USA and started its career racing on the Bahamas. It was upgraded to add chassis stiffness right from the beginning and is well documented thrughout ist history. The list of previous owner is as follows:

11/64 – Importer – Duchess Autos Inc, Lotus East Racing, Main St, Millerton, New York, USA

1964 – Newton Davis, New York, USA

1978 – Hans Olaf Rocke, Islamorada, Florida, USA

1979 – Alex Seldon, Guildford, Surrey, United Kingdom

1981 – Jeffrey Wakelin, United Kingdom

1981 – Unknown Owner, California, USA

1999 – Mike Paton, California, USA

2001 – Marcel Pund, Galerie Du Darnier, France

2002 - Gerard Marcy, Belgium

2012 - Anthony Schrauwen, Belgium

2020-  Current owner, Germany

Full history and a great number of very charming contemporary pictures of this car (and all other known Lotus 30) can be found on the excellent homepage of the Lotus 30/40 register, including its full racing history.

I am adding the link with the kind permission of the registrar:

https://lotus30.com/registry/reg-30s1/reg-30l7/

The car is currently in storage with Britec Motorsports/Unna, who would also offer to continue with their service and race support for a prospective new owner.

Please do get in contact via email, or-even better, just give me a ring, for full history, details, price etc.