To Be OFFERED AT AUCTION WITHOUT RESERVE at RM Sothebys' Amelia
Island event, 8 - 9 March 2019.
Estimate:
$400,000 - $600,000
- One of only a handful produced
- An incredible near-F1-specification racing car
- Includes a comprehensive spares package
- John Player Special tribute livery
- Never raced in competition
- The ultimate track car
Please note that this lot is sold on a Bill of Sale.
Lotus has never been shy about encouraging owners of its cars to
enter them into competitive races. Just six years after Colin
Chapman first opened the marque's doors in an old stable behind a
hotel in North London, Team Lotus was competing in Formula 1. With
Sir Stirling Moss at the wheel of a Lotus 18 rushing through the
streets of Monte Carlo in 1960, Lotus racked up its first of many
Formula 1 victories.
The Lotus 25 and Jim Clark brought the marque into prominence by
the mid-1960s when Team Lotus won its first World Constructors'
Championship. That success meant that barely a decade after Lotus
was founded, it was able to take over a decommissioned Royal Air
Force base near Hethel, England, for its headquarters, its assembly
plant, and of course a test track that used part of the original
runway.
A dramatic soap opera unfolded in Hethel over the course of the
next five decades when it came to sports car development, but Team
Lotus operated largely independently and placed some of racing's
most talented drivers on its roster in the 1960s and 1970s. Its
black and gold John Player Special livery became synonymous with
success. But it was Chapman's insistence on innovation and a knack
for signing the best drivers that kept Lotus on top, not its flashy
livery.
Jim Clark won the Driver's Championship in 1963 and 1965, with
Graham Hill (1968), Jochen Rindt (1970), Emerson Fittipaldi (1972),
and Mario Andretti (1978) earning the coveted award at the helm of
Lotus' racing cars.
Flash forward to the eve of the 2010 Paris Motor Show. Under the
watch of then-CEO Danny Bahar, about a dozen of the brand's
faithful were whisked first to the automaker's factory in Hethel
for an indoctrination into Lotus' illustrious racing past and then
by private jet to the Louvre Museum in Paris. In the basement of
the Louvre, Lotus unwrapped its latest project: the T125.
At first glance, the guests may have thought that Bahar was touting
a new Formula 1 race car. With Moss and Takuma Sato present to talk
about development of the T125, that assumption would not have been
far off. Instead, however, Bahar envisioned something that harked
back to Chapman's earliest efforts at encouraging Lotus owners to
take to the track. Bahar unveiled a private racing league that
might also double as a development tool for team Lotus F1. Lotus
called it the Exos Club and the roughly $1 million membership
included use of a transporter and a veteran driver to serve as the
coach.
The T125 was not shown to the public until January 2011, when F1
legend Jean Alesi helped unveil the racing car and the program to
the public at the Autosport International race car show in
Birmingham, England. Testing of the first completed car was
undertaken at the Vallelunga Circuit in Italy, where the FIA allows
Formula 1 teams to test their cars. The T125 makes use of
Cosworth's GP V-8, a 3.8-liter, 640-hp race engine capable of
screaming to 11,000 rpm through a six-speed sequential transmission
with a hand-operated clutch. The Cosworth V-8 is based on a
3.0-liter Indy racing design. Upsizing the engine made it more
flexible and durable for capable drivers who do not necessarily
have a Formula 1 background. Comprised primarily of carbon fiber
and nomex, the T125 tips the scales at just 1,433 lbs.
Unlike an actual Formula 1 car, the T125 can be started by its
driver at the press of a button. The automaker quoted a nearly
3,000-mile major service interval, something unimaginable to a
Formula 1 team. Additionally, the T125's cockpit is designed for a
wider range of body types than the confining seating position of a
true Formula 1 car. Alesi later helped shoehorn Top Gear's Jeremy
Clarkson into the T125 for a lap around the BBC show's famous
track. The presenter called it "an animal," and a week later the
program's mysterious, white-clad pace-setter, The Stig, lapped the
course in 1:03.8, about four seconds behind an actual F1 car a few
years prior.
Ultimately, the T125 project proved too ambitious to get off the
ground during a global recession. Just a handful were built,
including the example offered here finished in its factory-option
John Player Special-tribute livery. The T125 represents an
audacious unrealized dream, and it is also a rare opportunity to
acquire a car built nearly to Formula 1 specifications but for a
broader audience. Furthermore, please refer to an RM Sotheby's
representative for a comprehensive list of spares and additional
equipment that is included with the lot.
The T125 offered here was tested alongside a Porsche 962 at
Florida's Palm Beach International Raceway but has been largely
unused and sits ready to be enjoyed as Bahar�and Chapman so many
decades before him�would have wanted.To view this car and others
currently consigned to this auction, please visit the RM website at
rmsothebys.com/en/auctions/am19.
