Customer Reviews

Lotus 25/33

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Although Lotus had many successes in sports, touring, and formula cars prior to their first World Championship, it was the Lotus 25 and its evolution the Lotus 33 that vaulted Lotus, its founder Colin Chapman, and it's primary pilot Jim Clark into the motor racing world's pinnacle. Tipler's Lotus 25 & 33 is an effort at documenting these designs in total much as Oliver's tome on the Lotus 49 did. Like Oliver's book there are clearly holes in the story as the main protagonists, namely Chapman and Clark are no longer with us. But those remaining have given Tipler a wealth of information on the cars from concept through design and production to their competition history. This has been attempted before in Bamsey's Lotus 25 Climax FWMV A Technical Appraisal. Tipler's work is more complete, much better organized, and also includes information on other design derivatives such as the Lotus 29, 34, and 38 Indy cars, the Lotus 27 Formula Junior, and Lotus 32, 35, and 48 Formula 2 cars.

While not obviously designed as a book with two parts, there are essentially two halves to the work. The first half is Foreworded by Trevor Taylor, who as the number two driver to Clark probably logged more miles behind the wheel of these designs than anyone else. His introduction is followed by the events leading up to the design, then the origins of the concept and then the design itself. The descriptions are quite complete and the reader is left with a good understanding of the inner workings of the car and Team Lotus for that matter. In the second half the racing history of all of the chassis are delineated in a prose manner. This follows the usual boring pattern of who drove which chassis in which race that is so prevalent in books of this ilk. But to spice up the text there are enough anecdotes of the behind the scene happenings to make it an interesting read. Though many of them have already been ingrained firmly into Lotus lore, there are several first hand accounts by Tipler's sources that had not been included in the historical record.

Despite any minor shortcomings Lotus 25 & 33 is a worthy addition to the motor racing library and should be of interest not only to the Lotus enthusiast, but also those interested in Formula 1 history and racing car design.

At first glance an excellent review of these cars. 33 photos of detail useful to modellers. Chapter 2 - "Construction of the Tub" has 40 pages of text and photos on the mechanicals.