The hope for Lola’s comeback and what it could mean

There’s a heart-warming sight as you drive into Silverstone these days. A brand-new building proclaiming the words Lola Cars is plain to see on your left if you are arriving from the A43 dual carriageway. The building serves as both a reminder that one of the great names in British motorsport is back and a signal of its intent for the future. 

Lola is special for so many fans of our sport and those who work within it. It certainly is for me: I spent the better part of 40 years watching and then reporting on the exploits of its machinery. I’ve always been keen to tell people, as a sportscar guy, that the first world championship endurance race I witnessed was won by a Lola, the T600 Group 6 car at the Brands Hatch 1000Km in September 1981. Over my time I’ve seen victories by cars it has developed for Formula Ford 1600, Sports 2000, Group 6, Formula 5000 (in Formula Libre thanks to Tony Trimmer’s talents), SR2 and LMP2 (five class wins at the Le Mans 24 Hours included), LMP675 and LMP1 (the latter with Aston Martin badges), Formula 3000, CART Indycar and maybe more. Missing from that list is Formula Ford 2000, because I’m not entirely sure about that one. And I’m not counting historics and any one-make chassis, just to be clear.

That’s some range of machinery. The breadth of Lola’s involvement in motorsport after its establishment by Eric Broadley in 1958 goes a long way to explaining why the marque is so revered across our sport. Lovers of grassroots racing will have a soft spot for Lola courtesy of its successes in FF1600 - two Brands Hatch Formula Ford Festival victories included - and Sports 2000. Fans of top-line endurance racing can’t but fail to think of Lola with a certain fondness no matter their age. Ditto those who have a penchant for international single-seaters. 

It’s not just the fans who hold Lola - or Lolas - in such high regard. Back in the day when F3000 was an open formula the mechanics were always happier building up a new car from Huntingdon rather than a Reynard from Bicester. They screwed together that little bit better, needed a little less fettling to get everything shipshape for the race track. 

Lola did a bit of everything in its time, not forgetting the cars it developed for manufacturers that it couldn’t shout about. I’m not only thinking about the likes of Nissan and its late ‘80s and early ‘90s Group C machinery, the shorter-lived Chevrolet GTP programme in the IMSA GT Championship in the late 1980s or the MG EX257 LMP675 project of 2001-02. Lola’s composite division also built the monocoques for the Porsche 911 GT1-98 that triumphed at Le Mans in 1998. That’s often overlooked, as is the involvement of Lola Composites in another Porsche Le Mans winner, the Dauer Le Mans 962 GT1 car of 1994. It produced much of the bodywork.

The company today under Till Bechtolsheimer, who rescued Lola from impending oblivion in 2022, appears to have a similarly holistic approach. The revitalised company’s first two projects are quite different, though they are arguably coming from the same direction. The first, starting back in 2024, was its Formula E world championship entry in partnership with Yamaha, the second a born-again T70 Mk3B Group 4 machine that can either be continuation historic racing car with all the necessary paperwork or a visceral road-going machine that at the same time is a thing of beauty. The connection between the two is a focus on sustainability; both versions of the T70S incorporate cutting-edge, eco-friendly materials as Lola showcases its environmental expertise. 

Recreation of T70S honours Lola’s past while also looking to the future

Photo by: Dom Gall Lola Cars

But what many of us would like to see is an all-new Lola racer for today, a car that bears the famous blue-and-yellow badge. The Lola FE entries wear those colours with pride, but the bits of the car made from composites and aluminium come together in a Spark Racing Technology chassis. Lola has only developed the powertrain. 

The truth is we might not get what we might regard as a ‘real’ Lola anytime soon. The organisation did bid for a licence to build a next-generation LMP2, a class that is very much in the traditions of the company from the days of Broadley and then Martin Birrane’s subsequent ownership. I’m thinking of the two-litre T210 and T212 Group 6 roadsters under the former, the B2K/40 SR2 racer and any number of iterations of P2 car - both open and closed - under the latter. It wasn’t to be, however. Bechtolsheimer reckons the tender process came a little too early in Lola’s third coming. 

Till acknowledges the difficulties of relaunching Lola as what we might term a traditional constructor. Either you win a tender or you don’t. He’s not ruling out further bids and believes the process it went through with P2 will prove a valuable experience. But the areas on which he wants to focus lie elsewhere. 

Just imagine if it landed a GT3 deal: there would be Lola-built race cars rolling out of that new building at Silverstone

He wants Lola to be involved at the very top of the sportscar tree. It’s there, he reasons, that the company has the most to offer. Hypercar and GTP in the WEC and the IMSA SportsCar Championship respectively should still offer the freedoms come the introduction of new rules in 2030 to allow his organisation to stretch its technical legs. GT3 is another area of interest for the company. 

I’d be more than happy if Lola re-enters my world of sportscars, even if it remains in the shadow of a manufacturer. Just imagine if it landed a GT3 deal: there would be Lola-built race cars rolling out of that new building at Silverstone. Not in the numbers of old, but almost certainly by the dozen. GT3 is big business, don’t forget. 

If that happens, I’m going to have a secret hope regarding the chassis numbers of the cars. So far in Lola’s history they have been prefixed by BR for Bromley, SL for Slough and HU for Huntingdon in reference to the location of its factory. Fingers crossed that in the next few years SI joins that list.

Either through a partnership or as a standalone, it'd be a dream to see Lola back at the pinnacle of sportscars - like in 1994 with the Dauer Le Mans 962 GT1 car

Photo by: Motorsport Images