McLaren’s Neil Oatley is a source of motorsport minutiae and he has tracked down a most unusual story linked to Caterham, Lotus and Formula 1. Caterham was established to sell the Lotus 7, the manufacturing rights of which were acquired by Caterham founder Graham Nearn. The Caterham Super 7 was a derivative of the original Lotus 7 and that car remains the mainstay of the company to this day. What is not widely known is that a Lotus 7 took part in a Formula 1 race in South Africa in December 1962. The Rand Grand Prix was held at Kyalami and attracted a sensible field, including Jim Clark, Graham Hill, Richie Ginther, Innes Ireland, John Surtees and others. It was won by Clark in his Lotus 25, followed home by Trevor Taylor in a similar car. John Surtees was third in a Reg Parnell Lola while Gary Hocking was fourth for Rob Walker. Down in 11th place was a local hero called Brausch Niemann, at the wheel of a Lotus 7, who had managed to qualify the car 21st with a lap time of 1m44.5s, which was a pretty good effort compared to Clark’s pole of 1m35.0s. Niemann was the last qualifier as the organisers had set a 1min45secs limit. Thirteen cars failed to make the cut, including some pretty sensible racing machinery from Cooper and Lotus.
Following on from that there was one fascinating story that emerged from the Lotus-Caterham launch in Duxford. It seems that Caterham was looking for a way to move on and approached Dany Bahar of Group Lotus, asking to buy the rights to the Lotus Elise, which dates back to 1994 when the company was under the wing of Romano Artioli. Caterham reckoned that this would be the perfect follow-up to the Seven with low production costs, great performance and simple engineering. Group Lotus turned down the idea and so Caterham went to see Tony Fernandes instead…
joeblogsf1 
So there was 2 Lotuses in the 1962 Grand Prix?
Chee,
There were a lot of different Lotus models in the entry which included one or more Lotus 25s, 24s, 22s, 21s, 20s and even 18s
Joe
Peter Windsor posted about this yesterday. A good read.
I remember that race, Kyalami was always the first of the new season
The new Lotus CEO makes yet another own goal.
Joe – again a fascinating insight from the past. A quick question however regarding your reference of Caterham contacting Dany Bahar’s Groups lotus in 1994? Was Dany part of Group Lotus back then? I don’t know hence trying to get timelines sorted. I remember you had shared a nice graphic about the Lotus Timelines on this blog some time back as well…
Dany Bahar – this man seems to go out of his way to make mistakes now. And with each story that comes out it smacks of pure snobbery. Small teams, small companies, tradition and enterprise – none get his approval. It has to be ferrari mark two with someone else’s money.
Tony Fernandes is not a charity, he’s obviously doing everything for a sensible profit but he seems willing and happy to start small and work upwards. The caterham deal would make sense to anyone who wasn’t convinced they were above all these little companies.
@Williams4ever
The Lotus Elise dates from 1994, not Dany Bahar’s role at Lotus. Therefore Caterham’s approach to Bahar must have been fairly recently.
I’m surprised there are so many links intertwining Lotus Group and Fernandes’ Team Lotus.
W4E: Joe said the Elise dates from 1994, not that Caterham contacted GL in 1994…
@williams4ever
1994 refers to the elise not to Bahar. It was released 1996 but was worked on by Lotus from 1994
I would’ve thought that if Group are stopping production of the Elise, it would’ve made sense to sell the rights to caterham. Based on other recent business decisions to come out of Group I can’t say I’m shocked however. It’s a shame that all the ill-will between Group and Team will probably mean that Group will never sell the tights to any former model to Caterham (unless they are forced to by there own ludicrous plans going tits up)
Was interesting to hear on the Team Lotus podcast Ansar Ali say that he just cold-called Fernandes and within less than 40 minutes of meeting him, he knew Fernandes was the right man to take Caterham forward.
Cannot see the benefit to Group Lotus if they sold rights to Elise to Caterham. The Chassis extruding and bonding is now in house Lotus, so effectively it would be selling key components cheap to a rival. As the 2-11 chooses the S1 type tub, it makes no sense to allow someone else to trump you with your own technology.
I hope Caterham try for that market again. The 21 was not as good as the S1 elise in 1995, but that does not make the concept a bad one. With links to Lola, and the contracts Team Lotus have, perhaps the Elise concept, of a tub that you bolt subframes on to and clothe in composites would be an interesting one to follow.
Alfa seem to think they can make this work with the 4c, and I think that Caterham could find many friends if they had a product to offer to major manufacturers for limited run halo models
Williams4Ever,
Dany Bahar had no part in Group Lotius back then. He only joined Lotus from Ferrari a few years ago.
@Williams4Ever: I think Joe ment to say that the Elise dates from 1994 😉
Not surprised Group turned them down. The Elise is a strong Lotus brand, and they wouldn’t want to lose control of it. Ferrari wouldn’t let anyone else make Testarosas.
I agree with AuraF1 in this one. Tony Fernandes is a talented entrepreneur like few others. Dany Bahar I don’t know, but what I’m reading about this guy’s plans doesn’t seen too realistic.
I would bet my money on Fernandes business model.
@Williams4Ever
The rights to the Elise date back to 1994, not the Dany Bahar/Lotus partnership.
Well Joe, Wilams4ever kinda beat me to it, (sorta) but when was it that Bahar was approached about buying the Elise tooling and rights?
Romano Artioli was the guy who bought Bughatti wasn’t he and owned Lotus for half an hour?
*That* Innes Ireland?
Whoa, he’s a legend outside of motorsport.
Top catch, on all points.
Hi Joe,
If you’re looking into Caterham you should try and find out a bit about Project Splitwheel. A couple years ago Caterham funded it as an online crowdsourcing project to design a new model for their lineup which would sit alongside the 7.
I did some design work for them but the project was cancelled. Some of the things we were working on were very Elise-like and it seems like trying to buy the Elise outright was the next step after cancelling it.
There isn’t a ton of information about Splitwheel online because the website no longer exists, but if you ask Caterham about it they might be able to tell you something about it.
I am amazed anyone could get a Lotus 7 within 10 seconds of Clark in a 25. That just doesn’t seem possible. It does show why even today the 7 is a popular car with racers.
Dany Bahar is trying to raise obscene amounts of money and he turned down the chance to make money on the Elise. Surely common sense says that if he is trying to move Lotus upmarket and someone is prepared to pay for the rights to the lower models in the range you take it. Any sensible businessman would grab such an opportunity and try to build on it so that each step upmarket Lotus takes another model can be pensioned off to Caterham. Even if the company is staying at the same level it must make sense to let someone pay to make your old models.
I know he is not a car guy but he needs someone to explain the FIAT – Lada deal to him and explain how much that cost Ford when the Mark 2 Cortina did not show up well in the tests against the FIAT.
I’m a Malaysian, and if there is one thing that I’m very proud of today, it is Tony’s work and ambition. I’m not associating myself to him, but I’m just happy for what he has done.
And if you ask me what I’m not proud off, you could guess yourself very well. Amen!
@Williams4Ever
I think 1994 refers to the Elise, not Bahar.
@Scott
I think the history lesson is just the lead-in for the meat of the story; which is Caterham approaching Bahar for the right to the Elise. Peter Windsor didn’t write anything about that…
This was a non-championship race held in Kyalami at the end of the season.
http://jpgleize.perso.neuf.fr/gp/afmodh.htm
That year 1962 Graham Hill win both the title and the IX International RAC Grand Prix of South Africa on December the 29th 1962 at East London. No Lotus seven on start on Worldchampionship Events.
http://wikimapia.org/4209812/Prince-George-Race-Track-East-London-Race-Track
The circuit was located 200 km north of Port Elisabeth. South African GP in 1962 (dec 29th, Hill, BRM),
South African GP in 1963 (dec 28th, Clark, Lotus) and
South African GP in 1965 (jan 1st, Clark, Lotus).
Racetrack too small for the new 1966 F-1 – 3.0 L.
Williams4Ever
Joes’ article said ” the rights to the Lotus Elise, which dates back to 1994 “..
Didn’t mention Dany Bahar as being there in 1994.
I’m not Joe, but I think I can answer your question W4E: The 1994 date referenced in Joe’s article refers to the design date of the Elise, not to the approach of Caterham to Lotus Group.
I looked up the 1962 South African GP on the f1.com results database and it seems to be completely different?
Adam R,
The Rand Grand Prix and the South African GP were different events
@AuraF1 – I think 1994 refers to the first year of production of the Elise rather than an approach to “Dani Behr”
Williams4ever
I think you need to read this again!
@AuraF1 – my apologies. Your post follows that of Williams4ever which has been corrected by others. I confused the two. Sorry. In the meantime, I agree with your sentiments – Tony Fernandes is certainly not operating a charity but he believes in sustainable growth.
If Caterham want the rights to a MKII Elise all they have to do is get a deal with Vauxhall for the VX220.
It would be poetic justice as well. GM paid Lotus to develop the VX220 from the MKI Elise then Louts brought out the MkII Elise which was the VX220 with a few tweeks and a different engine.
@RobbieMeister
Not quite – the short-lived Lotus Europa was a VX220 though. Either way, I agree that both cars were very similar throughout.
RobbieMeister,
as cool as the Opel is, i think the fly in the ointment is precisely the big fish don’t ever leave anything on the table, let alone throw it back. Just in case. Innovation in a consistent company can be exponential, ceteris paribus, and so last year’s tech, is superannuated in faster than dog years. I privately believe many technical revolutions owe their origins to managerial and human fallibility. There’s plenty of oversights of great tech gifted to others in the common literature, but bigger ones still hiding in obscurity.
I’ve never seen one in the flesh, nor looked into it, but is there any design component – as opposed to design talent, difference between something reusable and a bit of genius stroke of pen – in the VX220 which Caterham would want?
This is where rpaco could put some perspective. I once had a crackpot idea (in photography) to acquire some designs and their related IP. (it was almost tangible, attainable, for the first bits) Okay, outta my league to start with. But the first thing which was pointed out to me was the machine tooling a) would not exist, be destroyed or worn to unusability even assuming anyone could suss how to operate it, b) if i was mad enough and had money to burn, tooling is a real art. Scale, or lack of scale is your enemy, but so is depth.
There’s a corrolary here, that some people, well, at least myself, think the real innovation in photography mechanics came in the mid last century, when there was a watchmaker’s artisanry in individual component perfection. That allowed close iteration. Six Sigma is good line of manufacture housekeeping, but rarely is fed back into design. Toyoda was doing that before anyone coined “Six Sigma” however, something insufficiently lauded by orders of magnitude.
You can see the reason behind 3D prototyping, it’s very exciting, (okay, until you are working out math to suss how many times you can fold a sheet of metal into a shape, which is more mental puzzle than just tech) but there have consistently been very few precision mass manufacturer’s in more than one living memory.
Using my photography analogy, it’s widely noted the awesome number of components in a modern camera. Bill Of Materials for a professional level model is definitely longer than a F1 car, for something you hold in your hand, and which you might not differentiate well from an iPhone in terms of aesthetic result. It’s amazing how Canon and Nikon have scaled out their tech into the consumer end to offset R&D, yet retain enormous premia for their top stuff, which will only give you a better picture under fairly precise circumstances. Both, however, sought the serious high end, supplying key kit to would be later rivals, such as the imagers which literally photiograph the important computer chips, as well as the low end. Top and tail, but even big Honchos are impressed by really well known names.
So, genius is simplification. But then you need to work out how one part does the job of two. That’s “simple” in computers, ICs, ASICS, but even then you’re having a laugh because you’re often as not putting more functions in the same small space, not actually simplifying.
Like i said the other day, give me a extra lifetime, materials science has got to be the thing. Reducing complexity at the human surface, my examples being how to use 6 chips inside your computer main chip, or 40 buttons on a steering wheel – that latter i do not mean exactly the same way: there are as many buttons on a camera, or a steering wheel, and they feed a private sense of what is “right”, but reducing them would be an equal goal. But note, even 20 years ago, great drivers and great photographers found ways to get their feedback with fewer buttons.
In other words, there is a perennial problem, of “pushing complexity down the stack”.
Take computer science, or computer language implementation, for one. Mainly sussed 50 years ago. You have to believe, and it is a belief, that whoever “simplifies” for you, has the same ideas and understanding of what you want to do. Yet, completely custom work, the kind which bypasses all this, is hard to replicate.
So, to be novel enough to get a advantage, you really need a pivotal advantage. That usually takes 100s of man years to attempt. F1 did so many things, but on the back of others, so it was copyable, or it was Max-regulatable. Mosely, being a lawyer, i think innately susses that you can argue the same point so many ways, and ended up maybe ahead of his time, endrunning people, only possibly too quickly, and without diving deep into what he was endrunning. Throw silly money at F1, and the regs would be left in the dust. They almost are, to my view, which makes this year in particular so exciting.
Then, there are the artists, who can take what’s off the shelf, and balance them beautifully. That’s really the appeal of F1. What F1 team has a real research as opposed to aplied research division? So, the designer goes, and performance goes, or the communication to setup and handling and driver vanishes. That’s exciting, despite we’re never invited to the inner workings of it all, and maybe the true artists barely know themselves in a way they could articulate readily.
The big auto industry boys gained other advantages which are plain to see. Scale. Distribution. Too Big To Fail (how many times has GM been US Govt. owned now, so less shame maybe Proton), Labor unions, tax breaks and laws, captive financing and import taxes.
That’s all muscle. If you go to a gym, you know Arnie is Arnie because he worked his whole life at that physique.
But the real thing here, is i have to criticise anyone who thinks there is the top downwards filtration of capital and research that a big integrated manufacturer gets, from F1 to Caterham. I may work in advertising, but i know that idea to be a marketer’s (often final) folly. Very very common misperception.
I don’t know, therefore, what the Caterham deal is about. They might not know. But it sounds like it’s about making things, which is good. To make it survive, they have to look for a new angle, however. Otherwise even an honorable and devoted owner who may not care less for the money, will get bored, and leave.
– j
@RobbieM: I think it was clear to GM that there would be a MkII Elise and that it would be very similar to the VX220.
As for Caterham buying the rights to the VX: TF has probably already made a call to GM…
Let’s not forget that both Opel and Tesla are using the bonded Ali chasis by Lotus Group plc.
– Opel Speedster (Vauxhall)
– Tesla Roadster
The MkII Elise is by no means a VX220…
Lotus needed a ‘greener’ engine for SoCal. enter the Toyota 2ZZ-GE exit the Rover K-Series. Coming to America.