The project was the brainchild of former Formula 2 team owner Roy Winkelmann. During the 1960s Winkelmann had proved successful running Brabhams and scoring successes with Jochen Rindt. However this team was to break up suddenly in 1969 with some of the core personnel (including Alan Rees) forming March Engineering.
Winkelmann then relocated himself in the United States and built up a large and diverse business empire. Following the creation of the CART series in 1979 Winkelmann saw a perceived blossoming of international interest and was once again lured to an opportunity to race again. However he did not wish to buy an "off-the-shelf" March or Lola chassis as was de rigueur in CART racing during the 1980s. Instead he initially approached Cosworth and obtained some assurances that they would be prepared to build "works" engines for his team. All teams in the championship were effectively running second-hand DFX engines at this point, with little input from Cosworth.
Winkelmann then approached Team Lotus and their new designer Gérard Ducarouge to obtain a bespoke chassis with the plan of competing and conquering CART within three years. Ducarouge enlisted Mike Coughlan to help design the chassis.
The 96T was Ducarouge’s response to these requirements. Its tub, lines and suspension were similar to the Lotus 95T that was racing in the 1984 Formula One Championships, but with one significant design alteration. Ducarouge had foreseen that at a track like Indianapolis, the car stood the very real possibility of hitting a concrete retaining wall at over 200mph (322km/h), therefore the chassis was modified.
Since 1981 all Formula one Lotuses had been constructed of a carbon/Kevlar (Chapman Tartan) sandwich with the void between the two filled with Nomex paper foil. The Type 96T departed from this by having the void filled with a lightweight aluminium-foil honeycomb. This modification was significant as it built in extra strength at no cost to weight and was to lay the foundations for all future Lotus Formula 1 chassis.
Despite the project's promising beginnings it was to be the American CART establishment's lack of enthusiasm (interpreted by some as outward hostility) for a "works team" that was to effectively kill this project. The repercussions of this were to virtually guarantee none of the sponsorship that Winkelmann had originally been so confident of. Also with a lack of sponsorship many drivers were not willing to sacrifice their growing reputations with an unknown European team, despite the legacy that team came with.
Cosworth is a British automotive engineering company founded in London in 1958, specialising in high-performance internal combustion engines, powertrain, and electronics for automobile racing (motorsport) and mainstream automotive industries. Cosworth is based in Northampton, England, with facilities in Cottenham, England, Silverstone, England, and Indianapolis, IN, US.
Formula One automobile racing has its roots in the European Grand Prix championships of the 1920s and 1930s, though the foundation of the modern Formula One began in 1946 with the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile's (FIA) standardisation of rules, which was followed by a World Championship of Drivers in 1950.
Lola Cars International Ltd. was a British race car engineering company in operation from 1958 to 2012. The company was founded by Eric Broadley in Bromley, England, before moving to new premises in Slough, Buckinghamshire and finally Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, and endured for more than fifty years to become one of the oldest and largest manufacturers of racing cars in the world. Lola Cars started by building small front-engined sports cars, and branched out into Formula Junior cars before diversifying into a wider range of sporting vehicles.
British Racing Motors (BRM) was a British Formula One motor racing team. Founded in 1945 and based in the market town of Bourne in Lincolnshire, it participated from 1951 to 1977, competing in 197 grands prix and winning seventeen. BRM won the constructors' title in 1962 when its driver Graham Hill became world champion. In 1963, 1964, 1965 and 1971, BRM came second in the constructors' competition.
The DFV is an internal combustion engine that was originally produced by Cosworth for Formula One motor racing. The name is an abbreviation of Double Four Valve, the engine being a V8 development of the earlier four-cylinder FVA, which had four valves per cylinder.
Kauhsen was a Formula One constructor from Germany, founded by former sportscar driver Willi Kauhsen. The team started in Formula Two in 1976, purchasing Renault cars, and raced with an assortment of drivers with limited success. Kauhsen then entered the 1979 Formula One season, spending 1978 designing their own chassis with Cosworth engines. They participated in two World Championship Grands Prix with Gianfranco Brancatelli, failing to qualify on both occasions, before the team was shut down.
Vel's Parnelli Jones Racing, commonly referred to simply as Parnelli or VPJ, was a motor racing constructor and team from the United States. The team was formed in 1969 by former USAC racer Parnelli Jones and his business partner Velko "Vel" Miletich. Parnelli was initially solely concerned with USAC racing, where success came quickly; their driver Al Unser won the Indianapolis 500 race in 1970, driving a VPJ Colt, after leading 190 of the 200 racing laps. Unser went on to win the USAC championship. Unser repeated the Indy 500 win in 1971 with a new Colt built without the left side chassis offset that had been made illegal by 1971 rules, ending the season in fourth place in the USAC drivers points while teammate Joe Leonard won the championship.
March Engineering was a Formula One constructor and manufacturer of customer racing cars from the United Kingdom. Although only moderately successful in Grand Prix competition, March racing cars enjoyed much better success in other categories of competition, including Formula Two, Formula Three, IndyCar and IMSA GTP sportscar racing.
Champ Car World Series (CCWS) was the series sanctioned by Open-Wheel Racing Series Inc., or Champ Car, a sanctioning body for American open-wheel car racing that operated from 2004 to 2008. It was the successor to Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART), which sanctioned the PPG Indy Car World Series from 1979 until dissolving after the 2003 season.
Chaparral Cars was a pioneering American automobile racing team and race car developer that engineered, built, and raced cars from 1963 through 1970. Founded in 1962 by American Formula One racers Hap Sharp and Jim Hall, it was named after the roadrunner, a fast-running ground cuckoo also known as a chaparral bird.
Team Lotus was the motorsport sister company of English sports car manufacturer Lotus Cars. The team ran cars in many motorsport categories including Formula One, Formula Two, Formula Ford, Formula Junior, IndyCar, and sports car racing. More than ten years after its last race, Team Lotus remained one of the most successful racing teams of all time, winning seven Formula One Constructors' titles, six Drivers' Championships, and the Indianapolis 500 in the United States between 1962 and 1978. Under the direction of founder and chief designer Colin Chapman, Lotus was responsible for many innovative and experimental developments in critical motorsport, in both technical and commercial arenas.
The Lotus 49 was a Formula One racing car designed by Colin Chapman and Maurice Philippe for the 1967 F1 season. It was designed around the Cosworth DFV engine that would power most of the Formula One grid through the 1970s. It was one of the first F1 cars to use a stressed member engine combined with a monocoque to reduce weight, with other teams adopting the concept after its success. It also pioneered the use of aerofoils to generate downforce.
David Keith Duckworth was an English mechanical engineer. He is most famous for designing the Cosworth DFV engine, an engine that revolutionised the sport of Formula One.
The Ferrari 637 was a Ferrari racing car designed to run in the American CART series. It was designed by Gustav Brunner and, although tested and unveiled to the press in 1986, it never raced.
The Williams FW06 was the first car produced by the combination of Frank Williams and Patrick Head for their Williams Grand Prix Engineering Formula One team. As was the standard arrangement for the many small British garagiste teams, the car was powered by the Cosworth DFV 3.0 litre V8 engine.
Four-wheel drive (4WD) has only been tried a handful of times in Formula One. In the World Championship era since 1950, only eight such cars are known to have been built.
Gérard Ducarouge was a French Formula One car designer whose career in motorsport started in 1965 when he joined the French constructor and racing team Equipe Matra Sports. He designed the Matra MS80 car which, entered by the British privateer Matra International team of Ken Tyrrell, won both the World Drivers' Championship and World Constructors' Championship in the 1969 season. After leaving Matra he also designed cars for Ligier and Lotus which won several races in the 1970s and 1980s.
Truesports was an automobile racing team founded by Jim Trueman based in Hilliard, Ohio. The team is best known for winning the 1986 Indianapolis 500 and back-to-back CART championships in 1986 and 1987. The team won 19 points-paying Indy car races.
The Lotus 59 is a racing car built by Lotus Components Ltd. for the 1969 and 1970 seasons of Formula 2, Formula 3, Formula Ford and Formula B.
Reynard Motorsport was the world's largest racing car manufacturer in the 1980s. Initially based at Bicester and latterly at Reynard Park, Brackley, England the company built successful cars in Formula Ford 1600, Formula Ford 2000, Formula Vauxhall Lotus, Formula Three, Formula 3000 and CART.
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