LOTUS TIMES February 2006 No. 1

Club News Up & Coming ECLC Dates

Not much of a January to speak of with warmer than Feb. 15 average temperatures. Winter is still here and who Regular Monthly knows how it is going to evolve. With little recent meeting at the Swan on the Rideau snowfall promise of an early spring put more pressure on the fettling part of getting our cars back on the Mar. 15 road. Time to continue fettling away and whatever The day after Valentines needs fettling. Day and the Regular Monthly meeting at the Swan on the Rideau Many thanks all those that came out to our Christmas party. To the amusement of all, we had 3 rounds of Apr. 19 stealing presents from each other and Alannah did a Regular Monthly great job in keeping it all together and moving. Lots meeting at the Swan on of little autocentric gifts were taken home. Thanks the Rideau

again to Bob Herres of W.O. Stinson & Son Ltd. for June 22-25 providing some of the gifts. 27th Annual International Vintage Racing Festival Those that braved the weather to make it to the – Mosport www.varac.ca February meeting were rewarded by being able to July 15 obtain a copy of a DVD entitled “Racing through 2nd Annual All British Car Time – Lotus” courtesy of Paul Hill who stopped by Day – Britannia Beach the Wal-Mart in Cornwall and bought every copy that Ottawa. they had in the bin. www.britishcarday.ca

The DVD chronicles the feats and failures in the early years of LOTUS. Featured are interviews with Hazel Chapman, Cliff Allison, Ennis Ireland and as well as a lot of vintage footage of the early years. 60 minutes of DVD LOTUS centric entertainment for only a Loonie. Thar's right, one Canadian dollar!

It is only one of a series of marques available in the ESPN series by that name. Others feature Alfa Romeo, Ferrari and a double feature focusing on the early years of F1 and Le Mans in which Lotus is prominent. There is great footage of the early years when racing was dangerous.

We have the monthly meeting on the 3rd Wednesday of each and every month to catch up with each other. We still meet at the Swan on the Rideau, 2730 River Rd., just outside Manotick Ontario on the 3rd Wednesday of each and every month. As always, owning or driving a LOTUS is really optional in this season. Come on out and join us.

Wheels section as soon ( this Friday). Elise/ Exige now available in Canada! The Lotus Exige S - breathtaking Yes, the wait is finally over. I first heard performance from the fastest it from Ed Luce who forwarded a link accelerating Lotus ever to come off the from a feature article in the Toronto star. production line! The story told of a 72 year old Kingston area grandmother, Ruth Bryson, who The small lightweight Exige S weighs purchased her BRG Elise at Ontarios just 935 kg (2057 lbs), powered by a only Lotus Dealer Gentry Lane in 162.5 kW (218 hp, 221 PS) high revving Toronto. She got hooked on the car supercharged engine, giving a zero to while visiting the UK and bought a place 100 km/h time of just 4.3 seconds (0 - 60 on the waiting list. The article quotes the mph in 4.1 seconds). It comes straight Toronto dealer as giving a base price of off the production line and isn't an CAN$58,550. Rumour is that this same "aftermarket special". Elise will be on display at the Toronto car show. Is this the quickest ever real-world production car? It is certainly the From the article: "It should go to a quickest Lotus production car - so far! youngblood that can drive it ten-tenths. But that is a fact of life: by the time you The Lotus Exige S is the latest addition can afford it, you're too old to enjoy it." to the Exige range and is a real sportscar Amen. that redefines the term "Extreme Performance". With 90.5 kW / litre Look for a potential article with more (121.4 hp / litre, 123 PS / litre), it is one information in the Ottawa Citizen’s of most powerful production cars in the

Page 2 of 8 LOTUS TIMES world for its engine size but most principally for its fuel economy!! importantly it has full type approval for all the markets in which it will be sold. Being a Lotus, straight-line performance The Lotus Exige S is not a limited is not the most important factor, but edition, nor is it an aftermarket special - every day driving on normal roads, or it is manufactured from start to finish in around a circuit is. There are very few the world leading and award winning cars on sale today that can match the Lotus Manufacturing facility at Hethel, speed, agility and safety of the Exige S Norfolk. in both day to day and track or circuit driving. However the Exige S is not just Because the basic car is so immensely a track day warrior. It is a sportscar that strong but lightweight (935 kg, 2057 would be at home on the back roads, lbs), giving a power to weight ratio of freeways and autobahns, as well as on 173.8 kW/tonne (233.2 hp/tonne, 236.4 city streets. With an extremely "torquey" PS/tonne), performance is phenomenal, engine and the classic Lotus suspension with 100 km/h being reached from a set-up of soft compliant springs and firm standing start in 4.3 seconds (0 - 60 mph controllable dampers, the driving in 4.1 seconds) and 160 km/h (100 mph) experience is an uncanny combination of being reached in 9.98 seconds (estimate) telepathic-like handling with a taught before topping out at 238 km/h (148 and comfortable ride. There is really no mph). In spite of this phenomenal car that handles quite like a Lotus. performance the fuel economy is impressive with an official combined Clive Dopson, Managing Director of figure of 9.1 litres / 100 km (31.0 mpg) - says, "The Exige S represents extra urban is an impressive 7.2 litres / the ultimate "extreme" production Lotus, 100 km (39.2 mpg). with performance that trumps other supercars costing twice or even three Lotus believes that there is no car on sale times as much. That it does so with the anywhere in the world that has such fuel economy of a family hatchback, good performance combined with such stands as a testament to the Lotus good fuel economy! Not that many concept of performance through light customers will be buying this car weight. It’s an unbeatable package and an unbeatable drive."

Priced at £33,995 including VAT (Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price) they should start rolling into UK showrooms in March to April of 2006. There are currently no plans to launch the Exige S in the USA market never mind Canada.

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Duckworth and detailed largely by Mike Keith Duckworth O.B.E: a tribute to Hall - revolutionised Grand Prix racing outspoken, and very British, genius - and heralded the era of modern Formula By Doug Nye One in highly commercialised, thoroughly well-packaged style. He got his BSc degree by criticising the university's methodology. He was David Keith Duckworth was born on canned as a prospective RAF pilot for August 10, 1933, at Blackburn, dangerous and incompetent flying. He Lancashire, second of two sons of textile quit work with on a engineer Frank Duckworth, who owned gearbox design by stating: "I'm not a moderately-sized cotton-weaving prepared to waste my life developing works, Oak Street Manufacturing, and something that will never work." And he traded textiles on the Manchester Cotton designed the most important engine in Exchange. Keith was thus not a history, the Yorkshireman, as many tributes have DFV. But Keith Duckworth, who died declared, but a Lancastrian, the red rose last week at the age of 72, was more than rather than the white... just a gifted engineer. Author Doug Nye pays tribute to a true motor racing His maternal grandfather had been a legend Make no mistake, Keith blacksmith and his mother the first lady Duckworth, who died on Sunday, demonstrator of cookers in the December 18, aged 72, was the Blackburn electricity showrooms. He outstanding racing engine designer of his was educated as a boarder at generation. Giggleswick in Yorkshire, while at home in Wilpshire on the north side of Cosworth Engineering, the company he Blackburn his father fostered Keith's founded with fellow engineer Mike engineering interest by converting the Costin in 1958, produced a staggeringly old air-raid shelter at the back of their successful series of Ford-based and small house into a workshop, equipped Ford-sponsored engines which from with a Myford lathe, vertical drill and 1960 to 1983 not only won a record 155 grinder. World Championship-qualifying Grand Prix races but also dominated Keith used them to craft his own model international Formula Two, Formula steam and aero engines while he also Three and Formula Junior, won the Le earned a reputation as the 'Whizz-kid Mans 24-Hours sports car race and from Wilpshire' sorting out any added multiple victories in American neighbours' electrical or mechanical Indianapolis-style speedway racing. problems. He would recall: "I once won a bet with my uncle by switching on an Duckworth was most proud of having electric blanket at two miles range by manufactured such precision-built radio control." engines in substantial quantity, opening Formula One's doors in particular to a He favoured Frog aero-modelling kits flood of new car manufacturers buying and also scratch-built flying models competitive Cosworth power 'off the from what he described to biographer shelf'. To that extent, the Cosworth Graham Robson as "...spills and bog DFV engine - master-minded by Keith

Page 4 of 8 LOTUS TIMES paper, rubber bands and all sorts of odds Chapman's pub in Hornsey, North and ends." London. He raced it three times and crashed it through the famously floral- His father died in 1944, when Keith was decorated Goodwood chicane, ending up just 11. At 16, he bought his first road against the bank "with a potted geranium vehicle, a non-running side-valve 250cc in my lap." He concluded he was not cut BSA motorcycle, which set him back out to be a racing driver, and then "just £25. National Service conscription scraped through" his BSc degree at loomed. He was keen to fly and decided Imperial after his dissertation emerged to seek an early call-up before possibly as a lengthy critique of the course, its going up to University, and on his 18th content and methodology! birthday he joined the RAF, and began pilot training, progressing from Tiger He did holiday work in the Lotus Moth biplanes at Digby near Sleaford, gearbox department in Hornsey, which Lincolnshire, through Chipmunks at was then headed by budding racing Booker near High Wycombe to twin- driver . It was there that he engined Oxfords at Holme-on-Spalding- first met fellow-Lotuseer , Moor. and when Graham left in August 1957 to concentrate upon a life as a professional There, disaster struck as he fell asleep racer, Chapman took on Duckworth while flying in the circuit. This was formally as gearbox development partly due to an allergic reaction to engineer. He identified the notorious treatment for a sprained ankle (he was Lotus 'queerbox' design's limitations, allergic to the adhesive in Elastoplast), ultimately telling Chunky: "I'm not and partly because he was "clapped-out prepared to waste my life developing after having been off for a time and something that will never work." working like a madman trying to catch up on my course." He still found himself He and Costin consequently founded being canned as a prospective RAF pilot Cosworth Engineering in September for "dangerous and incompetent night 1958, renting garage space in Shaftsbury flying." Mews, London. Keith operated there full-time, while Mike worked out his Sent for re-training as a navigator at contract with Lotus and attended to RAF Thorney Island, he then made Cosworth business out of hours. Their waves by contradicting his astro- pals - and enemies - within the tight-knit navigation tutor. "I don't compromise British motor racing world lampooned easily", he would later admit, "I simply the new venture as 'Cosbodge & won't accept theories that are wrong. I Duckfudge Ltd'. That stage didn't last can spot bullshit at 100 yards, and I have long... to say so". He was released early, entering Imperial College, London, in The new company's first job was to 1952, "...where engineering was actually make the jig for the experimental cockpit taught as an intended subject". bubble-canopy tried by the Vanwall Formula One team at Monza before the There he was introduced to motor racing Italian Grand Prix. Keith also by fellow undergraduates and bought a maintained and prepared private owner Lotus 6 kit car from Colin Chapman's Dennis Taylor's front-engined Lotus embryo company behind father Stan Type 12 Formula 2 car, and spent much

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time investigating and tuning all manner Engineering went on to dominate of customer engines. Formula Junior for the next four years.

Larger - but rat-infested - premises The company grew rapidly, moving to followed in Friern Barnet where he an ex-Lotus works in Edmonton in 1961, installed his pride and joy, a then to its definitive home in dynamometer for serious engine test and Northampton in 1964. The new 3-litre development work. In 1959 a new Formula One class was due for 1966 and Formula Junior racing class emerged, for Colin Chapman asked his former which Duckworth recognised employee if he felt ready to tackle a development potential in the new Ford Grand Prix engine design. Keith Anglia 105E production engine. relished the challenge, though n ot without trepidation and - typically - not He reworked the unit which Cosworth without deep, deep thought. Chapman put into production - with great credit talked Ford into footing the bill, and going to contract machine shop owner their sponsorship famously became "The Ben Rood, who would become a full best £100,000 Ford ever spent." partner in the business alongside Duckworth, Costin and Keith's sometime Duckworth produced first a Ford-based Imperial College flat-mate Bill Brown 4-cylinder 1600cc Formula 2 engine who became business director and sales with four valves per cylinder and twin manager. overhead camshafts, from which he then developed the 3-litre V8 Cosworth-Ford Keith was a stickler for financial DFV unit - the legendary 'Double Four- rectitude, with new wife Ursula keeping Valve'. Used by 's new Lotus the books during the evenings. He'd say, 49 it won the 1967 Dutch Grand Prix "I always employed the 'Jewish upon its debut. One rival engine Accountancy System'. You extract your designer - upon looking at the new car - money promptly from customers, ensure admitted: "We knew then, the game was that you pay up promptly, so that at any up!" time the money in the bank represents your position, and you don't have to do Overnight, Duckworth's transcendent much paperwork." DFV engine design had set entirely new standards in Formula One power and Ben Rood was not alone in being ingenuity. amazed by this infinitely non-motor racing approach to business. He Perhaps most indicative of Keith's recalled: "It was unbelievable the way peerlessly practical design genius was Keith used to pay his bills. Everybody his adoption of a cushioning quill-drive else would string you along, not Keith. to minimise destructive shock-loads in He'd actually come to you and say 'We the DFV's cam-drive gear train. owe you some money', and give you the cheque. People would do anything for Mike Costin: "That was his master- him...He was a straight-shooter." stroke with that engine - twelve little quills, six mating to one gear, six to the The Ford-derived racing engines other, and just enough cush to prevent manufactured and sold by Cosworth the gears from eating each other. It

Page 6 of 8 LOTUS TIMES made the DFV reliable, more important informed" - "It's better to keep your than merely being capable of dominating mouth shut and be thought a fool, than to races on power and torque alone..." open your mouth and prove it" - "A genius can make for a penny what a good engineer can only make for 10p" - and, perhaps more deeply: "Very few straight answers are ever possible, the decisive man is a simple-minded man."

"Development is only necessary to rectify the ignorance of designers" was a pretty pointed, and perhaps unusually self-deprecating one, while "It's simple to tell the truth. If you tell lies you have to remember what yesterday's lie was, so it's safer to be The long litany of successful Cosworth honest" is, like so much of the gospel engines from his drawing board and according to Duckworth, from his team's is well known. But most unchallengeably true. significantly this man was so much more than just a dry engineer. He also based his job-candidate interviews upon the simple principle that Far beyond the immediate group of men "Young fools go on to become old with whom he worked, and particularly fools." in later years amongst those whose careers and futures he so readily fostered His directness and incessant questioning - once they had earned the privilege of left him seldom at ease in dealings with his respect - he was a truly inspirational the politicians and empire-builders of figure, a dynamic teacher and a big business, but Cosworth grew rapidly celebratedly blunt philosopher. as he and his co-directors reinvested its profits in the company. 'Duckworthisms' have become renowned throughout the motor racing and However, Duckworth had suffered a engineering worlds - including "It is heart attack in 1973 - forcing him to stop better to be un-informed, than ill- piloting his adored helicopter - and with

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his 85 per cent stake in Cosworth staunch friend, and in their retirement threatening huge death duties, in 1980 he they have worked together part-time in sold to United Engineering Industries - recent years as consultants with the "too cheaply" as he would later observe. revived Triumph motor-cycle company, where their input - particularly regarding He continued to be involved in a general engineering practises, outlook consultative role with Cosworth engine and philosophy - has been immensely design and development of a new valued by the full-time staff. turbocharged Formula One engine, but difficulties with it coincided with the Talking this week about Keith's passing, emotional turmoil of divorce from his Mike Costin said it all: "I have been first wife, Ursula. privileged to spend more than forty years learning at the University of Early in 1987 he was found to require Duckworth..." urgent and major heart-bypass surgery. He would subsequently remarry - Gill - The great man was apparently and effectively retired to his hill-top hospitalised only two week ago with a house, 'The Folly' outside Northampton, badly infected knee, undergoing minor gradually losing interest in the company surgery but failing to recover. He passed whose engineering work in every area he away due to cardiac failure around 8pm could no longer control. He relinquished last Sunday evening. his Chairmanship on August 30, 1988, and while remaining a consultant, Keith's sudden death has come as a body particularly on race engines, he was blow throughout the motor racing world, made Honorary Life President in April for this singular personality was one of 1989. its most widely-respected - indeed revered - not-so-elder statesmen. He is One of the hobbies he indulged was a survived by his second wife, Gill, by his return to his boyhood interest in steam, son Roger (a director of Integral and he and a group of friends took it in Powertrain Ltd, Bletchley) and daughter turns to be master, mate and engineer of Tricia, by his step-daughters Amber and a lovely steam boat, whose engine he - Tina, and by his first wife, Ursula. of course - rebuilt and perfected. He also supported a deep family interest in What an engineer, what a man...what a microlight aviation, taking control of very great Briton. Whenever the both Cyclone Airsports Ltd and Mainair ultimate history of 20th Century Sports Ltd, constructors of Pegasus and engineering is written, Keith Duckworth Mainair microlights. should be amongst its brightest stars.

Mike Costin remained a close and

Lotus Times is the unofficial newsletter of the Eastern Canada Lotus Club (ECLC) and may be published anytime between January and December. The opinions within may not necessarily represent the views of its members, directors or anyone else living or deceased and knowing that the Exige S and Europa S won’t be available in Canada. .

The Eastern Canada Lotus Club (ECLC) President: Harald Freise, [email protected] (613) 828-3411 1034 Hindley Street Treasurer: Claude Gagné (613) 443-0998 Ottawa, Ontario K2B 5M1 Webmaster: Ron Wanless [email protected] (613) 359-1013 CANADA Web Site: http://lotuscarclub.ca Page 8 of 8 LOTUS TIMES