Lotus 23
The Lotus 23 was a racing sports car, which was developed in 1962 at Lotus.
Technology
The Lotus 23 was designed by Colin Chapman as a sports car two-seater, with the racing versions, the second seat was removed or covered. The Lotus 23 used the chassis of the Lotus 20, a Formula Junior racing car from the year 1961. Too, the suspensions were taken from this single-seater vehicle. The body was made of fiberglass reinforced plastic. The Lotus 23 was designed for different displacement classes. There were 750 cc - and 1- liter engines. The "B " versions were 1.5 - and 1.6 -liter engines from Ford
Racing history
The Lotus 23 made his debut in 1962 at the 1000 - km race at the Nürburgring. In heavy rain, the Scotsman Jim Clark walked away from the start in the lead. The competition from Porsche, Aston Martin and Ferrari had brought sports car at the Nordschleife, some of which had four times the performance of the little Lotus. Nevertheless, Clark finished the first round with a lead of 27 seconds on the Porsche of Dan Gurney. Only when the track began to dry up after a few laps, he was caught up slowly. In the twelfth round Clark lost in the high oak curve on output Hatzenbach control of the vehicle and went off the track. By vapors that leaked from a damaged exhaust, had become ill, so it no longer dominated the race car. A second Lotus 23 with Peter Ashdown and Bruce Johnstone at the wheel finished the race with four laps behind the winner, Phil Hill and Olivier Gendebien in the Ferrari Dino 246SP in eighth place overall.
At the 24 - hour race at Le Mans it came to a head, as the officials of the plant ACO -23, the race entry denied by the technical inspection. Even before the race was known that this was done under pressure from French racing team, who feared for their chances in the small classes. The Lotus team had to leave and an angry Colin Chapman made good on his promise, never more with a factory team to Le Mans to come. More than 130 pieces of this car were built by Lotus and were, until the mid- 1960s, popular and successful race cars that are still used today at events for historic racing cars.