LOTUS 20
Lotus 20 – Chris Chilcott
Photo courtesy of Keith Stevens
Lotus 20 – Simon Diffey
Simon displayed the chassis at the Classic Silverstone 2001 prior to being re-tubed by Mike Hibberd.
It was bought from Jim Bennett, Denver USA in year 2000. Previously with Roger Downer, whose notes say car 954, traced back to Richard Hughes of Stowe, Vermont, who ran a bar called The Pub. Hughes is now in Portugal. His mechanic was Cap Chenorweth, still in Stowe, who recalls the car circa 1980 in the state I bought the car in, but can not remember who it came from. The search continues, any help to find the original drivers / owners will be gladly rewarded.
The car had no seat belts or brackets so cannot have competed with the SCA after 1967.
Photo courtesy of Keith Stevens
Lotus 20 20-J-908 – Steve Futter
Back in September 2006 Carol and I were at Donnington Park attending the “See Red” historicmeeting having followed motorsport for many years. During the Formula Junior race I commented on how I would love to start motor racing, out of the blue Carol suggested instead of wasting my money on buying another road car why not buy a FJ, one month later a deal was struck with Jeff Llewellyn to buy a Lotus 20 he had imported earlier that year for his son who had then decided to emigrate. By December I had sat my ARDS test and set about getting “kitted out” to start racing, Christmas 2006 was very expensive!!
Chassis 20-J-908 was one of the first three Lotus 20’s imported into Australia by the Geogheganbrothers with Leo deciding to keep chassis 908 to race for a short time. It’s first race was at Warwick Farm 17th September 1961 and was raced by Leo Geoghegan quite successfully until January 1962 recording the following results.
17.9.61 Warwick Farm 4th outright, 1st FJ
1.10.61 Bathurst 3rd & 4th outright, 1st FJ
5.11.61 Warwick Farm 5th outright, 1st FJ
26.11.61 Lakeside 1st & 1st outright, 1st FJ
17.12.61 Warwick Farm 1st outright, 1st FJ
21.12.61 Catalina 1st & 2nd outright, 1st FJ
The car was then sold to Phil Boot and Leo Geoghegan bought a Lotus 22 now owned by Iain Flett and raced by John Fyda. In 1962 Phil Boot had the car stripped and a new chassis fabricated, it must have been a premonition as at Warwick Farm on 3rd June 1962 the car was completely demolished. The car was then rebuilt with the original chassis which the car has to this day complete with one original carburetor and Renault gearbox.The car was then owned and raced by a number of drivers over the years through to the end of 1971 recording a number of successful results. The car then lay under driver Ken Hambly’s house for the next 10-15 years when it was bought in 2001 by Ed Holly and underwent a full restoration.
The entire history of the car was researched by Adrian and Marc Schagen Lotus historians in Australia who should be commended as the documented history of the car amounts to nearly 41 pages of text and period photographs.
