How a lost Lotus that could have revolutionised Can-Am finally came to life

Continuation cars are all the rage at the moment. Recreations of everything from pre-war Bentleys to outlandish BRM Formula 1 machines, and plenty more besides, can be found in the historic motorsport scene. But, rather than following this well-trodden path, Simon Lane wanted to do something different when he was appointed executive director of the newly formed Lotus Advanced Performance special projects division at the start of last year.

Mindful of the much-loved marque’s looming 75th anniversary, he aspired to create something truly special – a car that combines Lotus’s illustrious history with modern-day technology. Fortunately for Lane, a chance discovery by Clive Chapman – son of company founders Colin and Hazel – in 2015 provided the key to making such an idea possible.

Chapman Jr had been searching through old F1 designs when he happened across something very different. Inside a tube, on microfilm, were drawings of what turned out to be a never-built Can-Am racer, the Type 66, penned by Lotus draughtsman Geoff Ferris. Chapman was intrigued and was subsequently asked to write an article about it for Motor Sport magazine’s celebration of Can-Am at 50.

A few renders and models were created, but that was seemingly the end of this incredible car’s stop/start story. That was until a conversation between Lane and Lotus design director Russell Carr shortly after Lane joined last year.

“I was sitting in Russell’s office and he talked me through this [the 66] and it was like discovering an unreleased Beatles song,” recalls Lane. “In Lotus history terms, this is an incredible race car, which has clear Chapman traits all over it, that no one knows about – and, not only that, it looks absolutely beautiful.”

The 66 followed a largely unsuccessful previous Can-Am foray a few years before with the Type 30. But, with many of Lotus’s contemporaries subsequently entering a category that also attracted the greatest drivers of the day, and was arguably the most exciting series around, Chapman tasked Ferris with coming up with a design for 1970. Yet, amid the huge number of other projects Lotus was working on – not least developing the revolutionary 72 that changed the face of F1 – the Can-Am racer was quietly forgotten about as attention turned elsewhere.

Photo by: David Phipps

Lotus had earlier ventured into big sports-racers with the Type 30, albeit without much success

But upon hearing about Lotus’s equivalent of a lost Beatles track, Lane instantly decided he wanted the 66 to be LAP’s first creation. After securing the blessing of Chapman Jr, and persuading the rest of Lotus’s management of the merits of an expensive project to build just 10 examples (mirroring the 10 races of the 1970 Can-Am campaign) of this track-focused collectors’ car, each with a £1.1million price tag, the hard work really began.

Adding to the challenge of bringing a 50-year-old design to life was the fact that Ferris’s original drawings were not complete – and some contained different versions of the car to match the changing Can-Am regulations.

“There’s not really a collection that absolutely fit together – the dimensions are slightly different,” says Carr, who highlights the presence of a high wing on some designs and an integrated one on others as a key difference, brought about by the flimsy appendages being banned on safety grounds: “You either get two drawings that are slightly different because one has the wing on struts and one hasn’t, or you can even see where Geoff has erased some lines and changed things. So we had to make the best judgement of how to fit them together.”

"Cooling hadn’t really been tested out in the day, so we’ve done a lot in simulation form to make sure there’s good airflow to the radiators and the openings are big enough" Rusell Carr

In total, over 1000 hours of CFD work went into creating the present-day version, pulling together the old drawings and adding enhancements and modern safety features.

“We applied better surfacing on it because some race cars had beautiful surfacing on them, but they were designed really quickly and it was all about winning on the day and only for a few races,” continues Carr. “But, obviously, a collector is going to look at and love this car for years, so it’s making sure a panel’s not too flat because then it will look hollow, and putting just enough shape in it.

“We also had to integrate a few things which were to do with modern requirements. So a little bit of a change around the front end because the original car had a floating wing and we wanted to integrate a crash box in front of the driver’s feet. The Type 72 was the car of the moment so we designed the nose to reflect that.

“Also, the attitude of the front wing changed because it wasn’t really doing very much where it was, it wasn’t reacting with the airflow, so the pitch of the wing changed. And cooling hadn’t really been tested out in the day, so we’ve done a lot in simulation form to make sure there’s good airflow to the radiators and the openings are big enough.”

Photo by: David Coyne / Lotus

Lotus paid a lot of attention to the small details in finally bringing Ferris's drawings to life

Carr and his team were mindful of making the tweaks subtle to ensure the original design still rang true. “Geoff Ferris has seen the car and it looks correct to him,” says Carr. “You had to hold your hand back not to go too far and make sure you do it justice.”

Lane says one of the few stipulations Chapman Jr placed on the project was that the car must be safer, easier and more fun to drive than the daunting machines of the Can-Am era it was born from.

“What we’ve done is create a car that looks and sounds like the original, but has aero we know 100% works and is much safer,” he explains. “It has a proper crumple zone front and rear and a crash structure, and race ABS, traction control and power-steering, so it’s much easier for the amateur to drive. Also, it’s much faster than the original would have been because it’s got more power – it will be contemporary GT3 pace.”

Carr adds: “It’s really the best of both worlds. It’s got all the spirit and visceral experience of the car of the period but it’s got all the benefits of everything we’ve learned over 50-odd years to make it safer.

“Simon came up with this great thing of saying it was like discovering a lost Beatles track and I said our job then – like when someone finds an old tape or recording and has to remaster it – was to amplify all the bits that are exciting and important and take away all the noise that is a distraction and an irritant, and at no point lose what Chapman would have seen and loved.”

It seems the Lotus team has navigated that tightrope to perfection, and the statistics behind the car are staggering. The pushrod V8 engine produces a roaring 125 decibels of glorious noise – as well as 830bhp. And with the final version of the car set to come in at just under 900kg, that gives a seriously impressive power-to-weight ratio. It’s therefore no wonder that, rather than referring to the 66 as Lotus’s lost Beatles track, Carr says it better represents Black Sabbath!

An initial show car was unveiled at Monterey Car Week in August, just weeks before Lotus’s 75th anniversary and merely 10 miles down the road from Laguna Seca, a 1970 Can-Am venue. With the car clad in a colour scheme that is unmistakably the Gold Leaf-liveried F1 72’s of 1970, Emerson Fittipaldi – the likely driver had the 66 ever raced in period – was also on hand for the launch.

Photo by: Motorsport Images

Would the 66 have been able to halt McLaren’s charge to 1970 Can-Am glory?

But as impressive as the new creation is, there is still a feeling of what might have been. “Clive said to me this could have been the Type 72 of Can-Am had Lotus made it,” says Lane.

There were certainly the classic hallmarks of a revolutionary Chapman car. Take the side-mounted radiators inspired by the 72 that contrast with the front-mounted ones of the other 1970 machines. Or the rather liberal interpretation of the two-seater Can-Am rules with the planned presence of a jump seat.

For those involved, there is a clear sense of pride in finally ensuring that this forgotten Lotus gets the appreciation it deserves.

There is one final touch that completes the Lotus circle. The final assembly for the 66s is set to be carried out by Classic Team Lotus – Chapman Jr’s operation that features several stalwarts of the Lotus glory days

“We’re all very lucky boys and girls to have been involved in this one – it was a dream project,” says Carr. “I’m just old enough that I can remember Can-Am cars thumbing through your magazine. As a kid, there would be a few tantalising pictures of Can-Am cars and just being really excited by them.”

Now, if you have an incredibly healthy bank balance, you can also share that excitement. Construction of the 10 customer cars is set to begin in early 2025, but not all have yet been sold. And, while Type 66 remains the focus for now, the inevitable question concerns what comes next for LAP. Lane is somewhat coy when he says that there are “potentially” other similar projects in the pipeline.

“But we have very, very limited other opportunities, so I don’t want to give the impression we’ve got another 10 of these up our sleeve,” he clarifies. “We certainly haven’t!”

Regardless of what the future holds, there is one final touch that completes the Lotus circle. The final assembly for the 66s is set to be carried out by Classic Team Lotus – Chapman Jr’s operation that features several stalwarts of the Lotus glory days. “You could argue this will be the first Chapman-built Lotus track car in decades,” says Lane. And that really will be the most fitting of codas to this rediscovered Lotus track.

Photo by: David Coyne / Lotus

Customers with deep wallets can sample the Type 66 for themselves