The Lotus 18 was the last word in modern formula one design in 1960. Designed by Colin Chapman over the winter of 1959 who having
studied the Cooper T53 design set out to improve it .
Built with a tubular frame and glass fiber body the Lotus 18 was the first ever mid engined Lotus design and had a further advantage of an extremely low
centre of gravity. The suspension was novel too. Firstly the Type 18 was fitted with Anti Roll bars front and rear and although the popular coil spring and
double wishbones was employed at the front the rear set up was a new design and one which later became almost universally copied by the constructors.
Each wheel was mounted on a light alloy hub carrier and to which was mounted normal bottom wishbone parallel to the half shaft and with its base to the
wheel it was located by radius arms at the top , the half shaft acting as a upper wishbone. Although brilliant in concept this system had the disadvantage
that the wheel was unsupported in the event of an axel or a structural break, the consequence of this short coming became very apparent during the
1960 racing season.
The lotus 18 was immediately successful in formula one, and formula two as well as formula Junior. The F1 cars used a four cylinder 2495 cc Coventry
Climax unit while in F2 they retained a 1475 cc Coventry Climax FPF, in formula Junior the Lotus 18 was fitted with either a tuned Ford 105E or BMC A
series engines. At Monte Carlo Stirling Moss made his first appearance with the dark blue Rob Walker entered Lotus 18 and won the event which was the
first Lotus Grand Prix victory for an 18. Other notable drivers who raced the Type 18 include Innes Ireland, John Surtees, Jim Clark, Ron Flockhart, Jim Hall
, Cliff Allison, Trevor Taylor, Tim Parnell and many others.
We are at the moment re-master the 1960
Lotus 18 in 1:8 scale shown in the pictures here and
shall be introducing it at the spring as part of our own
Auto-Racing studio to compliment our later type
1963 Lotus 25 model. shown here are some pictures of
the existing model in both Rob walker colors and
classic team Lotus livery prior to our improvements.
We shall be adding some further details of this new
model in the next month. With some detailed
photographs But please in the meantime please contact
us to be kept informed of the developments for
this new model. We shall also be offering the model as a
limited fully detailed model.
| |
