Lola T280

[Jeremy Jackson]

Michael,

That's why I asked about the Lapeyre/Chevalley car, and wondered if the fact that 07 was sold a few years ago was connected with this car appearing in the US. However, Vintage Motorsport (Nov/Dec 2003) did a couple of paragraphs on this car, saying that owner Bert Skidmore had restored in to 1979 livery, but nothing about how long he'd had it.

So, yes it could be HU07, just no definite information either way...

[Michael Oliver]

Well, I suppose it narrows it down a bit because only 2 T286s appeared at Le Mans in 1979 - the Martin Raymond Fisons car and the Andre Chevalley Racing car for Lapeyre...

Does anyone have any pics of the Skidmore car? I know it raced a few weeks ago at the Philip Island meeting in Australia and I asked for photos of it over on the 'other forum' but no-one responded... If we could, at least we'd know what livery it was in!

Also, what made you say that Skidmore's car was the ex-Lapeyre car in your earlier post? Finally, PHDM reported that T286/7 sold at Poulain to a French buyer, presumably Mahe. I guess we need to find out if he still has the car or sold it on (to Skidmore in the US?)...I was certainly under the impression from conversations I have had recently that the car was still with Mahe.

Michael

[Jeremy Jackson]

Michael,

So Lapeyre's wasn't 07 then...Photo of the Skidmore car at Watkins Glen Sept 2003 below.

The Martin Raymond car at LM79 was a T380, not a T286.
Jeremy

[Michael Oliver]

So Lapeyre's wasn't 07 then

Only if the car sold at Poulain was the real 07

Any ideas what the name of the primary sponsor is on Skidmore's car? Is this the livery that Lapeyre ran in 79 LM?

The Martin Raymond car at LM79 was a T380, not a T286.

Yes, sorry, I remember now you saying that Raymond had a T380 - I think it is incorrectly labelled as a T286 on one of the sites: Le Mans Register IIRC!

So only one T286 started LM 79 anyway, which narrows it down completely!

Michael

[Jeremy Jackson]

Michael,

That's how the car ran in 1979 - The only difference to my 1979 photo is that the "Richard" & "Elf" logos weren't there in 1979.

Primary sponsor was Macumba - A French hotel /club? - based near the French/Swiss border I think.

[Michael Oliver]

Jeremy

Just googled Bert Skidmore+Lola and came across a story sourced to shannons.com.au previewing an event (Philip Island, maybe?) and it said that his car was the first of four 3-litre T286s to be built, e.g. they are saying it is HU07. So either he owns the car sold by Blaton at auction or there are two cars with the same chassis plate...

Annoyingly, I cannot open up the page to read more of what they had to say but I think that is quite interesting.

Also turned up a couple more pics of the Skidmore car, IIRC on Richard Harrington's photography site.

Michael

[Jeremy Jackson]

Michael,

You're correct re: Richard Harrington's website, I also have a couple from there. His photo was the one in the VM report I referred to.

So we need to know what exactly was at Poulain...

[Dan Rear]

Jeremy, where has the Raymond LM T380 in '79 come from? Probably that I've forgotten the detail here, but didn't he have a 2-litre T390 in '75, and then back to Bolton to replace it. Was the T380 the ex Alain de C car, which we think may have been either HU4, or the de Cad LM2 ??

[Jeremy Jackson]

Dan,

It was the 75-76 de Cad car that Simon Phillips operated 78 - 79 (He was part of the offical entrant in 1979). Raymond brought the Fisons sponsorship for this race only, I think. The car as used by Dorset Racing in 1981-82.

I remain ever so slightly sceptical of the HU4 & "LM-" notation that I used previously. This was shown to me by someone else, and may be a personal notation only. I believe AdC's 1978 car was numbered ADC/78/1 (Which formed the basis of the first Ecosse) So I could assume the 77 car was ... ADC/77/1

[Nordic]

I have some pictures of the Dorset racing Lola at Silverstone in 81 & Brands in 82.
Also a couple of picture of the 33 & 30 298's at Lemans in 81.
If you are interested I will post them here.

[Jeremy Jackson]

Pics of the Lola in 81 & 82 would be great.

I have pics of the 81 LM cars, but I'm sure others would be interested

[Dan Rear]

Jeremy/Nordic, did Dorset have a 3-litre Lola in 81-82, I'd always thought a 2-litre, which was an original T290, variously updated thru' the 70s,and latterly called a T297?

I agree that the "de Cadenet" that AdC had built in about 77, and used to 80, later became the first Ecosse. I presume this was the car that he and Desire W won with at Silverstone and Monza in early 80. Sad end to a car with a good history, when it burnt out in T-Sports, mid-84 ? Or was this another car entirely ?

[Jeremy Jackson]

Dorset definitely ran the 3-litre, raced at LM & Brands in 81, but did little apart from a DSM race in 82. They retained the ex-Edwards/Barclays T290, and continued with it (and/or a T298) post-T380

I thought AdC may have built a new chassis for 80 or 81 (The Belga car at LM), but it appears this was his 78 car, and became the Ecosse, which was, as you correctly say, destroyed (Brands 84)

[Nordic]

Lola no 30 1981

Dorset Lola 81 Silverstone

Lola 33 LM 1981

Dorset Lola 82 Brands Hatch
Body off Belga De Cadanet LM 81

Lm 1980 Lola

[Michael Oliver]

OK - some more info on the earlier 3-litre cars, from Lola.

T280 - a replacement chassis, HU280/5, was built by Lola in 1972 and despatched to Ecurie Bonnier to replace the one destroyed in the Bonnier crash, chassis number 2. Therefore, it seems that the car which appeared at Rouen in October 72 and then Kyalami was not in fact the prototype T282 at all (it certainly looked more like a T280 than the next year's T282 when it came out) but merely an extension of the T280 line, with maybe a few bits tidied up compared to the early cars? It may well have carried (for customs/carnet purposes?) the chassis plate HU280/2, even though it was the fifth T280 *entity* built. Not sure what happened to this car after the Kyalami smash - forgot to ask - but other people I've spoken to have said that it was rebuilt. Perhaps this was the basis of the Schulthess T284 (although Lola denies any knowledge of such a designation - see my note later on).

The only snag to all this is that Chris Fox is advertising *both* T280/5 and T280/2 in his advert, although I don't think he is sure about the latter (it is in the US) because it doesn't have a chassis plate. All he says is that it is the car which wasn't crashed by Bonnier at Le Mans 72 (which would make it, according to our calcs, T280/1, not T280/2). However, looking at it, it looks quite a lot different to the picture of the Broman car which we believed to be T280/1 based on the identifying feature of the odd roll-over bar/hoop in the 73 Rouveyran photo and the Broman pic. It doesn't have the roll-hoop on it either, although that could easily have been replaced when/if it was restored/rebuilt, particularly as Americans put particular emphasis on their (often oversized) roll-over bars on historic racing cars... It does, however, have an airbox on it, which was unusual and may or may not be the original.

T282 - Lola constructed only one T282 officially, HU282/6 was completed (or rather invoiced) 4/1/1973 and delivered to Larousse (I think it was actually run by Scuderia Filipinetti that year IIRC). They are adamant that no more T282s were built BUT there was a 2-litre chassis supplied (T292?) in 1973 with an uprated bulkhead and T282-type roll hoop to accommodate a 3-litre engine. I think this car was sold to Jolly Club and was the one which appeared at the 1973 Dijon 1000kms with a 3-litre Capri V6 engine installed. Don't know what happened to it afterwards but anyway this car is not in the official T28* numbering sequence.

T284 - Lola say they did not build any such car with this designation. So, this is either the T280/5 Kyalami crash car rebuilt (perhaps most likely), another 2-litre car upgraded or it could be the 73 Jolly Club uprated car which was sold to Schulthess for the 74 season? If it wasn't the Jolly Club car, then where is this - maybe this is the mystery car still in Italy referred to by Kojima_007?

T286 - chassis 7 was supplied new to Heini (spl?) Mader, who I guess may well at that stage have been the European agent for Lola? Anyway, I think this is the car that ended up being driven by Lapeyre - not sure if it was owned by someone else - did we say Andre Chevalley? Chassis 8 they originally said was lagoon blue and went to Italian hillclimb exponent Mauro Nesti but I think they might be getting confused because AFAIK he only had a 2-litre BMW-powered car during that period. What they did say was that two T286s were sold to Capoferri, so these must be 8 & 9 as we know 10 wasn't built until much later. They were different in that they had three fuel cells (right, left, behind driver) and both cars had twin front brake calipers. IIRC one of these cars ran a 2-litre turbo engine and the other a DFV?

So does this iron out the histories a bit more and how does it fit in with what everyone else has said/knows already?

Michael

[Jeremy Jackson]

Wow, Michael, thanks very much for your effort.

Couple of things -

I mentioned just a bit earlier that the HU05 that Foz has was run by them in 1999 as a "T284" (according to magazine reports, I didn't get to see it -Any programmes to confirm this?), so was this Schulthess' car?

6 & 7 look prety well sorted out (He said hopefully), I guess we may not no which particular events 8 & 9 took part in.

So I still have some doubts on the original 2 JoBo team cars - Did we start off with the wrong assumptions?

Plus, and this may not be part of our "story" at all, Reudi Jauslin's "T286-HU50" raced in Interserie betwenn 1978 & 1983 - Is this (most likely) a 2-litre chassis uprated, or a misprint of HU05? The one photo I have of shows a tall airbox, alost identical to Schulthess' car.

Thanks again, Michael

[mickj]

The Bert Skidmore Lola T286 (1976).
The writeup in the Philip Island programme states that it is chassis no.HU286/7.
Being the 1st built out of 4 cars constructed. HU286/7 raced at LeMans from 1976 thru to 1981.
It also raced in the French Sportscar championship by Henri Pescarolo.
Bert Skidmore purchased it in April 1999 and rebuilt it groundup.
Hope this helps.
Mick

[Michael Oliver]

Jeremy

Yes, I agree, the one advertised by Fox (HU05 ot T280/5, whatever you want to call it!) could well be the Schulthess car, although I am not sure when it would have acquired the HU05 chassis plate (maybe post-Kyalami?). You mention that it appeared in 1999 in the RJB Thundersports series - does anyone know who ran/administered that series as they might have some documentation for it still? If you have any pics of the Schulthess and Jauslin cars you could share, that would be good, as I've never seen photos of either.

Re the Jauslin car, I guess either of your two explanations are plausible! It would fit if it was a misprint and the chassis tag in the car was really HU05 and also it could be a 2-litre car uprated. Do we know how many 2-litre cars were built (a lot, I would guess!) and if so I suppose the only answer is to try and find out where/whom chassis T29*/50 was sold to?

MickJ

Thank you, thank you! I was really hoping somebody who was there/had a programme might dive in! That's very useful. Does it give any indication as to what sort of era Pescarolo might have driven it in the French Sportscar Championship (actually I didn't know there was one!) I mean did you get the impression they meant in the early 1980s once its Le Mans career was over or are we talking recently? I guess the best thing is to get on to Bert Skidmore himself and ask him what else he knows about it.

The date of April 1999 would seem to suggest that this cannot have been the same T286/7 that was offered for sale/(sold?) at the Poulain auction, as I am sure somebody said that was December 1999 or even 2000. Problem is, I can't find any record of it on their website - does anybody have the exact date of the sale? I'm sure PHDM had some details and even pics of the cars and chassis plates but I can't find them...

Cheers

Michael

[Jeremy Jackson]

Michael, the RJB series was part of the HSCC calendar.

Courtesy of the Moity/Teissedre 2-volume LM book, here's the Schulthess car at LM75:

This car also ran with a triangular section central airbox, I know I have a photo somewhere... and Jauslin's car has this airbox - There'a paddock photo of it here:

http://racingsportscars.t35.com/phot...-16-photo.html


HU50 would have been a T292. Guess what? Schulthess ran a T292 at the LM 4hours in 1973...

[Michael Oliver]

Jeremy

Thanks for the pic of Schulthess at Le Mans 75 and the link to the Jauslin car - I also found another one at the bottom of that page, a sort of rear three-quarter shot with all the bodywork on.

So the Schulthess car *could* have been his 73 2-litre upgraded? It might make sense if it was but for the sake of our chassis history it kind of fits in better if it was T280/2(2) upgraded.

BTW, when I spoke to the chap at Lola yesterday, he didn't disagree that it was the original T280/2 that was written off in the Bonnier crash.

However, I guess we still do not know that for sure, so there is a feint possibility that it could have been HU01 that was crashed and written off.

Personally, I feel certain that the original, hacked-around prototype would have been given to the pay drivers but you never know, one car might have had a better/newer spec engine in it...

Michael

[Jeremy Jackson]

Michael,

More observations re:Schulthess - The car is referred to in it's first appearance at LM74 (by Autosport) as a "new T280/4". At Ricard & Kyalami it's called a T282 (There's another photo of it in Autosport's Kyalami report, if you have that issue)

[Michael Oliver]

Jeremy

Yes, I should have that - what is the issue date?

Do you agree that Jauslin used his car up until August 84? I found a record of him doing a hillclimb and he used it in a couple of other races (Swiss Championship?) that year.

Michael

[Jeremy Jackson]

Michael,

Autosport is 14 Nov. 1974 (Larrousse Matra at Kyalami on the cover)

Yes, Agree that Jauslin ran it in the Swiss Champ. & Euro. Hillclimb champ. up to 1984.

[mickj]

Michael
No mention of when Henri Pescarolo raced the Lola. Just mentioned that he raced it.
Mick

[Michael Oliver]

Jeremy

Thanks for that - I'll have a look today.

Mickj

OK, no problem, thanks for looking. I have HP's contact details somewhere so I guess it might be worth giving him a ring - when I get the time!

Cheers

Michael