Why romanticism isn't the key factor in Lola’s racing return

The idea grew out of passion and a love for motorsport. The new owner of Lola reveals that his initial thought when he realised the iconic British race car constructor was up for sale was to rescue it from the dustbin of history. But then, Till Bechtolsheimer the businessman kicked in. He reckons there might just be a niche to be carved for an established brand in a changing motorsport landscape.

“The idea of one of the really iconic motorsport brands being consigned to the history books was a really sad thought,” says Bechtolsheimer, who runs an investment company in New York during the week and races an Acura in the IMSA SportsCar Championship at the weekends. “The initial motivation was a romantic idea that could I play a small part in preventing that from happening, from preventing Lola disappearing and helping give it a new lease of life. What gave me the confidence to go through with it is a bit of a different story.”

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The 40-year-old Briton’s interest had been piqued when he saw what might loosely be described as an advert for the rights to the Lola name and its associated trademarks, as well as the windtunnel business. He contacted the family of the late Martin Birrane, who had retained the rights to the name and continued to run the Lola Technical Centre incorporating the windtunnel and a seven-post rig after the demise of Lola Cars International in 2012.

“I reached out partly out of curiosity, but the more time I spent on it, the more I thought it was an interesting moment to do this,” he says. “Motorsport regulations are in a pretty significant state of flux top to bottom. In addition, the automotive industry at large is going through probably its biggest change since the Ford Model T, with electrification.

“With change comes a chance for a new entrant in the marketplace, for a re-entrant to carve a niche. That provides an opportunity for the Lola brand to re-emerge. The Lola brand is pretty unique because it works as a stand-alone brand and means a lot to motorsport fans like myself and the motorsport industry, but it also works well in combination with automotive brands, and always has done.”

The last point is a reference to the Lola-developed cars that raced without the marque’s blue-on-yellow insignia. The company’s involvement in Ford’s GT40 project in the 1960s is well documented, the part it played in Nissan’s Group C campaigns in the late 1980s and early-’90 perhaps less so. Largely forgotten, for instance, is that the monocoques of the Le Mans 24 Hours-winning Porsche 911 GT1-98 were built by Lola’s composite division.

Bechtolsheimer envisages a future for the revived Lola Cars - he has chosen to use the original name for the relaunched company - working with car markers on projects carrying their badges. The proliferation of new electric-vehicle manufacturers offers Lola an opportunity, he reckons.

Olivier Panis, Lola T92/50 Cosworth DFV

Photo by: Sutton Images

“You are seeing new brands pop up left, right and centre, and in the world of electrification, motorsport is going to be one of the ways they can differentiate themselves,” he says. “I believe Lola can play a role in lending credibility and heritage to some of the new automotive brands. That element of things kind of got me more serious about the idea of taking on Lola.”

Bechtolsheimer sees what he describes “as a fairly significant overlap with my day job” as CEO of Arosa Capital Management. The company he co-founded in 2013 is a US-based investment company focussing on renewable energy, with an increasing involvement in emerging technologies in the transport and automotive sectors.

“I have built a career investing in energy, energy efficiency and renewable energy, and motorsport is really all about efficiency and in particular energy efficiency,” he says. “There is an interest on my part to use motorsport and Lola as a test bed and a platform for innovation in energy-efficient solutions, and I’m looking to find broader applications for those than just the race track. There has been a bit of an evolution in my interest in Lola.”

Bechtolsheimer is adamant that in the fullness of time there will be new Lola-badged cars on the race track as well as projects undertaken for manufacturers.

“Lola’s DNA has always been customer racing cars,” he says, “and I still think there is a future for that at Lola.”

What he doesn’t envisage is the type of manufacturing facility that Lola ran under the ownership of company founder Eric Broadley and then Birrane, who rescued the business in 1997.

“I don’t think it is necessary for Lola to rebuild those capabilities,” he says. Instead, he is promising a lean business that taps into the wider motorsport industry.

“Lola is in the heart of motorsport valley in the UK and there is a huge amount of resource and talent available to us where we can partner with providers of composites, construction and assembly. So I think we can be a little bit more asset light and more focussed on the design and engineering aspect of the equation.”

Bobby Rahal, Galles/Kraco Racing, Lola T90/00 Chevrolet

Photo by: David Hutson / Motorsport Images

Bechtolsheimer is talking about the first car developed by new Lola being on the race track as early as 2024, though he suggests that 2025 might be more realistic. But on the other hand, he adds, there are certain opportunities that could see a Lola competing even earlier.”

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The nature of these opportunities isn’t being revealed by Bechtolsheimer for the moment. He’s only saying that “conversations in both sportscar and single-seater paddocks are ongoing”.

Lola’s new owner makes no secret of his love of sportscar racing, the discipline in which he has competed in North America since he moved out of the historic ranks in 2016. He also has a strong desire to take Lola back to the Le Mans 24 Hours. But he insists that he isn’t relaunching Lola as some kind of plaything.

“I didn’t buy Lola to turn it into a pet project for Till to take it back to Le Mans just to say that we have done it, or to build a car for me to drive,” he says. “I don’t want this to become the Till show. I’m trying to be conduit to allow Lola to really take off and to revive itself as a version of its former self.”

To that effect Bechtolsheimer isn’t going to be running the business on a day-to-day basis. He’s bringing in specialists to do that, and besides, he points out, he already has a day job. “It is about putting the right people in place rather than me being the CEO,” he explains. “I wouldn’t be the right person for that; I’m not a motorsport or automotive guy.”

But who is Till Bechtolsheimer save for the driver we know races an Acura NSX GT3 Evo22 in the IMSA GT Daytona class with Gradient Racing? He’s a life-long motorsport fan for a start, who dabbled in karting as a child and then the Minicross off-road discipline before concentrating on his business career.

He returned to racing in 2011 in historics with an Alfa Romeo Giulia Sprint GT and has subsequently raced, among other things, a Chevron B8 and an Allard J2. He moved into contemporary racing in 2016 in the IMSA SportsCar Challenge feeder series aboard a Porsche Cayman GT4 run by CJ Wilson Racing. He made his debut in the full IMSA series at the Sebring 12 Hours in 2018 with an Acura NSX run by the same squad and then in 2019 moved across to the the GT World Challenge America with a set-up that became known as Gradient after a change of ownership. He’s raced with the team in GTD since 2020, scoring a best result of third at Detroit last year.

#66 Gradient Racing Acura NSX GT3: Kyffin Simpson, Till Bechtolsheimer, Mario Farnbacher

Photo by: Jake Galstad / Motorsport Images

Bechtolsheimer was born in Britain, but he owes his name to his German parents. They moved to Gloucestershire shortly before his birth to establish a stud farm. The family is well known in the eventing world: sister Laura is an Olympic medal winner in dressage.

Bechtolsheimer hasn’t purchased Lola through his Arosa company. Rather, he calls it a “personal investment”, adding that it is “perhaps too much a mixture of passion and business to be appropriate for our investment vehicle”.

That passion, which was so important in him initially reaching out to the Birrane family last year, has resulted in Bechtolsheimer adding a Lola to his collection of cars. He bought a Mk1 sportscar earlier in the summer: “I wanted to have one Lola before I made the announcement that I had bought the company.”

Till Bechtolsheimer, Lola Cars

Photo by: Lola