Wednesday 1st December 2010

Video: Franchitti Drives Lotus Indy Winner

Jim Clark's classic Lotus 38 gets an outing with Dario

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Clark and the Indy 500 winning Lotus

The reigning IndyCar champ Dario Franchitti gets a chance to sample Jim Clark's glorious Indy 500 winning Lotus 38 in this video courtesy of US mag Road&Track.

Clark took car number 82 to victory in 1965, leading the race for 190 of its 200 laps and becoming the first driver to average more than 150mph over the 500 mile event.

Dario Franchitti, also a Scots racer and a man with a pretty strong record of his own, is clearly impressed by his countryman's exploits - which is nice. If you've got five minutes, it's worth a watch.

[L100NYY]

Watched this the other day, very nice video in my opinion and well worth a watch.

[f111lover]

Dario; the best F1 driver never to have driven in F1. But it's good to see him beating the yanks.

[Ollieb7]

Great! :-)

[davegreg]

Absolutely beautiful car!

[sibo99]

would be a dream to drive that master piece

[Dangermouse78]

I hope Dario got a chance to take the 49 for a spin as well, just to compare. What a beautiful line up though, the 38 & 49 together on the Indy track

[Bahnstormer]

There is a great video that really captures the era HERE

[mickrick]

Fantastic! Automotive art!
I would have loved to see him drive the 49 too.
That must be 49 chassis number 3? If it is then that would be Graham Hill's car.
I touched it last year. A big Thank You to the Gentleman at Beaulieu who lifted the rope to let me get close to the Holy Grail!

Or is it in fact Clark's R2 which later became R11?

Anyway, the indy car is beautifull.

Edited by mickrick on Wednesday 1st December 16:32

[LeighW]

I'm actually very closely related to Franchitti. My uncle's (late) cousin was his grandad. Ok, maybe not that closely related...

[Unf]

Bahnstormer said:

There is a great video that really captures the era HERE

Absolutely brilliant. Final seconds of that with Senna at Monaco...hair raising memories indeed. Never mind the '76 Lauda crash. Two opposites of what has improved (and not) F1 over the years. More safety but get rid of all the driver aids please.....

[urquattro]

How nice to see it come out of exhibition and back where it belongs for a while

[Galileo]

Were's the 0-10 vote scale that we normally get, for that car?

That one goes to 11...!!

[dinkel]

sibo99 said:

would be a dream to drive that master piece

It would be a dream to drive any 60s formula car!

[Throttle Body]

I really enjoyed that. A really nice piece. And the picture quality was close to TV standard without the broadband running out of bandwidth.

[mybrainhurts]

Great stuff, thanks...

[RobM77]

Wonderful video. What a beautiful car

[Dog Star]

RobM77 said:

Wonderful video. What a beautiful car

It is fabulous. I think Indycars are beautiful cars from most eras - I love the way they look so wide a flat. Much cleaner looking that the tech-fest that are F1 cars and for the last couple of years have looked a bit of a dogs breakfast. They really ought to introduce "aesthetics scrutineering"

[chevronb37]

Surely the greatest single Lotus of all time. The noise is just unbelievable when you compare it to the Type 33 which was its Grand Prix equivalent in 1965. It's so coarse and so loud - totally different to the Climax engine. I believe, if the Type 49 is the Zandvoort car then it will be R2, which has recently been converted back from its R11-era specification and should now look similar to R3 which is at Beaulieu. R2 was a static display on the Lotus stand at Goodwood Festival of Speed this year, but I'm afraid I didn't get any photos - rather amateur.

Couple of photos below. Jimmy's 38 at Goodwood Festival 2009 when it was a static exhibit - check out the tyres, probably still the originals from 1965! Exhaust pipes resting at Classic Team Lotus during restoration there, November last year. We weren't allowed to take photos of the car itself sadly, but it snuck into this one - that is the back end of the monocoque sat on tressles behind the 11. The engine returned to the US for restoration. JYS at the wheel, Goodwood 2010, post-restoration and its only appearance in the UK as a moving exhibit.

[Gr1fff]

This tinkers aeound the hethal track quite often and it certainly is loud and sounds very harsh, would love to hear it driven in anger!

[Ex Boy Racer]

Unf said:

Bahnstormer said:

There is a great video that really captures the era HERE

Absolutely brilliant. Final seconds of that with Senna at Monaco...hair raising memories indeed. Never mind the '76 Lauda crash. Two opposites of what has improved (and not) F1 over the years. More safety but get rid of all the driver aids please.....

Great video. You can really see those guys driving their cars; right on the edge. You just don't get that impression these days, though I know the drivers are heros in just the same way.