Sadly for Innes - Colin Chapman perceived greater promise in Team's younger Scottish recruit Jim Clark, and Ireland found himself summarily dropped by the Lotus factory team for 1962 and replaced by the future double-World Champion. While Moss brought the Lotus marque its first Formula 1 Grand Prix victories in 1960, Innes Ireland single-handedly beat the works Porsches on their home ground to win the 1961 Solitude GP and followed up by scoring Team Lotus's own first World Championship-qualifying GP victory in that year's United States GP at Watkins Glen.
Innes also won the LombankTrophy race for Lotus that year.
He won for them not only the Glover Trophy at Goodwood on Easter Monday 1960, but also the Formula 2 race there in Team Lotus Type 18s - outperforming Stirling Moss's Cooper so thoroughly that Moss beseeched his entrant Rob Walker to get him a Lotus 18 - which was arranged. Yet he genuinely loved Lotus, and strove to achieve success for the team. Innes was straight out of the hard-drinking, high-living mould previously exemplified by Mike Hawthorn, and he was certainly a colourful character. He also drove GT cars for Aston Martin, having formerly handled such Ecurie Ecosse chassis as their D-Type Jaguars. When Colin Chapman introduced his first rear-engined Lotus, the Formula 1 Type, Innes instantly led the opening Argentine GP, and added 2nd places in the Dutch and United States GPs. He immediately took a points-scoring 4th place and later that year was 5th in the United States GP at Sebring, Florida.
Autocar magazine 1960 driver#
Colin Chapman recognised his developing talents and engaged him as a works driver for Team Lotus, making his Formula 1 debut in the 1959 Dutch GP alongside Graham Hill. He had begun racing in an elderly Riley in 1954 before simply being smitten by the sleek, lightweight, sophisticated promise of the Lotus sports car range. Innes, as he was always known, born in Yorkshire in 1930, had been raised in Kirkcudbright, Scotland, and before becoming commissioned as a lieutenant in the Paratroop Regiment and serving in Egypt during the Suez Crisis of 1956, he had trained as an engineer with Rolls-Royce.
Autocar magazine 1960 drivers#
One of the sports car drivers who graduated to the single-seater 'Vanwall-shape' Lotus 16 Formula 2 cars in 1958 was the extrovert and supremely self-confident young former paratrooper Robert McGregor Innes Ireland. The Kiran-Taylor body form, fine-tuned by aerodynamicist Frank Costin, contributed to the car's low claimed drag coefficient of just 0.29.ĭuring the period of the Lotus Elite's introduction, Team Lotus was struggling to establish its front-engined single-seater racing cars within International 1 1/2-litre Formula 2 competition, in the way that their 1100cc Lotus 11 sports-racing cars had come to dominate their class at every level. The Bristol-bodied Elites were lighter yet more robust than their Maximar predecessors. While the first 250 body units were made by boat-specialists Maximar Mouldings of Pulborough Sussex, their quality proved problematic and Chapman quickly replaced Maximar with the Bristol Aeroplane Company as sub-contractors.Ĭolin Chapman had established himself as the effective high priest of weight-saving competition car design and the exquisite Type 14 Elite Coupe proved a wonderfully agile driver's car, suitable for high-performance use on both road and track. While GRP or 'glass fibre' mouldings formed the entire load-bearing structure of the car, a steel subframe supporting the dedicated 1300cc Coventry Climax FWE 4-cylinder single-overhead camshaft engine was bonded into the monocoque's forward bay, as was a square-section windscreen-hoop providing mounting points for door hinges, a jacking point for lifting the car and roll-over protection.
Autocar magazine 1960 series#
The Lotus Type 14 Elite was produced in series by Colin Chapman's Lotus company from 1957-1963.
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