How a relic of the past defeated the future
The 1960s was a time of rapid technological change in Formula 1, but innovation didn't always come away with the prize. STUART CODLING recalls when Black Jack's thunder from Down Under defeated something special from Hethel
History rightly records the Lotus 49 as one of the seminal grand prix cars of the 1960s. Conjoined with the Ford-Cosworth DFV engine, it rendered its opposition obsolete at a stroke. And yet it was beaten to the world championship in its first year by one of those very dinosaurs.
Appearing for the first time on the same weekend as the Lotus - Zandvoort 1967 - Brabham's BT24 was everything Colin Chapman's masterpiece of lightweighting wasn't.
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