I plan to chronicle the restoration of this early Lotus 61 Formula Ford here on my web site. The above photo shows her as purchase by the owner twice removed from me. Evidently the car had been updated to participate in SCCA Club racing somewhere in the Midwest. The logbook stamp on the roll bar, 06-322 identifies the car as once having raced in Western Michigan. The car was purchased by a Lotus aficionado in Ohio about four years ago. His intentions to restore it were derailed after purchasing a Lotus 20.
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The car then changed hands and ended up just outside Pittsburgh where the next owner began the restoration process. Greg removed the side pods and other SCCA mandated updates. He also began the process of collecting bits and pieces to upgrade the car from a "slider" to a roller. A Hewland gearbox was secured along with a fresh set of MK 8 side plates. It is rumored that the 711M motor was resurrected from a most interesting donor. Greg tells me that it came out of a "Bobcat" loader. It will be most interesting to see this little lump of cast iron fly down the back straight at Road Atlanta one of these days. |
| Greg decided to put the car up for sale when it got in the
way of his other project. Can you say "Indi Light"?
Here's the all important piece to authenticate. The tag sure appears real enough. Sadly, I haven't been able to find too much history for this old baby just yet. It seems that the Lotus FF Registry site on |
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the web has been pretty dormant for the past couple of years. The SCCA folks in Western Michigan have apparently lost many of the records from this era and can't help much either. If you have any information relating to this car, please drop me an email at steve@taft.net .In the mean time, check back from time to time to observe the progress. Perhaps we'll even see you at the track. |
