This 1983 Lola is a custom one-off built using a widened Lola T70 Mk III body over a T165 chassis. Powered by a big block Chevrolet engine, Weber carburetors and a ZF transmission, this car traces its heritage back to the "Banzai Runners" days of Los Angeles where illegal, high-speed races took place on area highways; multiple winner at Concours in the 1980s
Founded in 1958, Lola (Lola Cars International Ltd) is one of the great names of race-car engineering. Based in Huntingdon, England, Lola Cars started by building small front-engine sports cars and branched out into Formula Junior cars before diversifying to be one of the oldest and largest manufacturers of racing cars in the world. Of all the great endurance racing sports coupés of the period, the beautifully proportioned Lola T70 MKII coupés, such as this handsomely presented example, are perhaps the most beautiful from every angle. Lola Cars Ltd, under its brilliant founder Eric Broadley, not only built some of the most attractive sports, GT and single seater racing cars that modern motor racing has ever seen, it also produced extremely competitive and well-engineered machines which earned broad custom and widespread acclaim not only in their home country of England, but also throughout the racing world: Europe, the USA, Australasia, Southern Africa and Japan alike.
Lola underscored all that is illicit about motor racing. Wildly alluring, Lola’s aesthetic can at times make one forget that each of these hand built machines is dedicated 110% to extreme motor-sport performance. Further still, the design philosophy reflects the company’s pure focus on the capabilities of the few pilots who were physically and mentally good enough to strap themselves into one of the most highly refined pieces of racing kit available during the period. It should also be noted that Lola in many ways celebrates a period of driver skill that did not rely on motherboards and computer safety nets. These are 100% analogue beasts that rely on extreme human endurance.
Lola was one of the top chassis suppliers in super-sports-car racing in the 1960s. After his small front-engine sports cars came various single-seaters including Formula Junior, Formula 3 and Formula 2 cars. Broadley designed a Lola coupé fitted with the Ford V8 engine. Ford took a keen interest in this and paid Broadley to put the company on hold for two years and merge his ideas with Roy Lunn’s work, giving rise to the now-famous and highly collectable Ford GT40. Broadley managed to release himself from this contract after a year and started developing his own cars again. He started off in sports cars with the Lola T70 which was used successfully all over the world from the World Endurance Championship to the CanAm series, until 1973. Lola (with rebodied Formula 5,000 cars) also dominated the CanAm sports-car series when it was revived in the late 1970s. Reaching cult status, the LA scene established the 200mph club which saw illegal racing on LA’s motorways; this car was clocked at 204mph! Each of the examples in the catalogue offer unique design provenance underscored by one thing – Super car performance. The final word should go to Road & Track, 1985:
“You don’t so much drive it. You experience it, for in spite of the fact that this particular automobile (Lola T165/T70) has been tamed for highway use, it continues to communicate its racing lineage most convincingly.”
info from webbs,
1983 Lola T165 / 70 Gullwing Cam Am | Webb's