Yesterday I mailed my strut inserts and rear shocks to be re-valved. They are stock, with forty years and hundreds of thousands of miles on them. My torsion bars are stiffer than stock. I also, yesterday, sent the struts to a shop that will raise the spindles, weld on bump steer hardware, etc. I'm pretty excited about how this car will handle when finished. The car is an old German coupe with a six-cylinder air-cooled engine in the rear. I think you guys can visualize that. ;)

Another Colin Chapman maxim was Soft springs, stiff shock absorbers for a decent ride with good handling. Of course his cars were always lightweight, with small wheels and tyres so less unsprung weight, and stiff for their day chassis.

Colin Chapman was wrong.

Engineers who design suspensions are not uninformed. They (typically) match (optimize) spring/damper/unsprung/sprung weight using math and testing on typical roads.

Race engineers will go further and dial in those parameters for performance on any given track.

IOW, there is not some sort of rule/trend that suggests springs need softening and shocks need stiffening for a decent ride with good handling.

Here is the math basics:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmonic_oscillator#Damped_harmonic_oscillator

...to think of all the time I was wasting rubbing it back and forth with a microfiber towel.

And Viagra.

Just changing the air pressure in your tires can change the handling.

Chapman was so wrong that his cars won an awful lot of races. Of course the dampers need matching to the roadsprings

Dampers valved to match the springs is what makes my setup more competent.

Actions and words do not always mesh; especially in competitive environments. ;)

Well in a light car you don't have to use as stiff a spring as a heavy car and you can still use heavier dampening as long as you don't over do it, but it all depends on the track, the geometry, the tires and so on.

That said, a lot of his cars were so light they didn't always stay completely together.

You can also save weight by using the anti-roll bar as the upper link in the front suspension.

Yes and for much of the time Chapman had Graham Hill to work with whose setup notes and valuable feedback are the stuff of legend.

but the same principles still apply 50 years later, even though chassis stiffness and tyre performance are on a completely different scale now

This indicates he had a sense of humor.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Chapman

I was also said by someone in the way back, "If you want to live drive a Porsche. If you want to win drive a Lotus."

Everything changes but the Wiki article says Chapman ideas are still present on modern race cars.

Colin Chapman also said something to the effect "If the car doesn't fall apart as it crosses the finish line then it's over-weight and over-engineered"