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About this brand
In the sprawling, high-octane history of motorsport, there are the aristocrats—the Ferraris and Lotuses—who raced for glory and national pride. And then, there was Lola. Lola was the merchant, the arms dealer, the pragmatic genius who supplied the weapons for the world’s racing wars. If you were a privateer with a chequebook and a thirst for victory, whether you wanted to race at Le Mans, Indianapolis, or the local club circuit, you went to Huntingdon. You went to see Eric Broadley. For five decades, Lola Cars was the backbone of the grid, the “Garagista” king that built more racing cars than any other manufacturer in history. To dismiss Lola as merely a customer car builder is to miss the point entirely. Lola was a phenomenon, a brand that proved that a small British engineering firm could out-think and out-build the industrial giants of the world, creating machines of breathtaking beauty and devastating speed along the way.
The story is inseparable from its founder, Eric Broadley. A quiet, unassuming civil engineer (and cousin to the aforementioned Derek Bennett of Chevron, proving that genius ran in the family), Broadley built his first car, the Broadley Special, in 1957. It was an instant success. By 1958, he had founded Lola Cars. The name, derived from the popular song “Whatever Lola Wants, Lola Gets,” was a statement of intent. The first production car, the Mk1, was a Formula Junior revelation. It was low, light, and handled with a delicacy that made everything else look agricultural. It set the template for the Broadley philosophy: clean aerodynamics, robust engineering, and adaptability.
But the car that truly launched Lola into the stratosphere—and inadvertently changed the course of automotive history—was the Mk6 GT. Unveiled in 1963, it was a stunner: a mid-engined, monocoque coupé powered by a Ford V8. It was compact, aggressive, and incredibly advanced. It caught the eye of Ford, who was looking for a way to beat Ferrari. Ford bought the car, hired Broadley, and used the Mk6 as the DNA for the GT40. But Broadley was an independent spirit. He hated the corporate suffocation of Ford. He took his money, left the GT40 project after a year, and returned to Huntingdon to build his own vision of the ultimate sports racer.
The result was the Lola T70. If you close your eyes and imagine a 1960s sports car, you are likely picturing a T70. Whether as the open-top Spyder that dominated the early years of the Can-Am series or the menacing MkIIIB Coupé that raced at Le Mans and Daytona, the T70 is a masterpiece. Powered by a thundering Chevrolet V8, it was the privateer’s hammer. In 1966, John Surtees—the only man to win World Championships on two wheels and four—piloted a factory T70 to win the inaugural Can-Am championship. It was a brutal, beautiful demonstration of power, and it established Lola as the premier builder of “Big Banger” sports cars. The T70 MkIIIB, with its swooping lines and Kamm tail, remains one of the most aesthetically pleasing shapes ever to grace a racetrack, famously winning the 1969 24 Hours of Daytona against the factory Porsches.
While the sports cars were grabbing headlines, Lola was quietly conquering America on another front: Indianapolis. Broadley had a fascination with the Indy 500, and his T90 put Graham Hill in Victory Lane in 1966 (though officially a “Red Ball Special,” it was a Lola). This began a romance with the Brickyard that would last for decades. In the 1980s and 90s, through a partnership with the cigar-chomping American importer Carl Haas, Lola became the default choice for CART/IndyCar teams. The rivalry between Lola, Reynard, and March defined the golden era of American open-wheel racing. The pinnacle came in 1993, when Nigel Mansell, the reigning F1 World Champion, jumped into a Newman/Haas Lola T93/00 and stormed to the IndyCar title on his first attempt. The sight of the “Red Five” Lola screaming around ovals is etched into the memory of every 90s race fan.
But Broadley’s genius was perhaps most evident in the brutal, ground-shaking world of Formula 5000. This series, which pitted 5.0-litre V8-powered single-seaters against each other, was a test of bravery and chassis stiffness. The Lola T330 and its evolution, the T332, were the absolute kings of this domain. Driven by masters like Brian Redman and Mario Andretti, the T332 was virtually unbeatable in the mid-70s. It was a simple, effective, and devastatingly fast machine that relied on mechanical grip and brute force. It is widely regarded as the greatest F5000 car ever built.
Formula 1, however, remained the elusive mistress. Lola never ran a full, long-term “factory” team in the traditional sense, preferring to build cars for others. The “Hondola” of 1967 (the Honda RA300) won the Italian Grand Prix with John Surtees, a chassis built by Lola but badged as a Honda. They built cars for Graham Hill’s Embassy team, for Larrousse, and for Scuderia Italia. Occasionally, these cars shone—Aguri Suzuki scored a podium at Suzuka in a Lamborghini-powered Lola—but they were often hampered by budget constraints. The disastrous MasterCard Lola project of 1997, which failed to qualify for its first race and folded immediately, was a sad footnote that unfairly tarnished the brand’s F1 legacy.
Yet, Lola’s resilience was legendary. In the late 70s, as the ground-effect revolution swept motorsport, Broadley was at the forefront. The Lola T600 was the first purpose-built ground-effect sports prototype. It decimated the IMSA GTP field in 1981, rendering the Porsche 935s obsolete overnight and forcing the creation of the Porsche 962. It was classic Lola: seeing a regulatory opportunity and engineering a superior solution before anyone else.
Even after the company faced financial ruin in the late 90s and was bought by Martin Birrane, the spirit survived. The new era saw Lola become a titan of Le Mans prototypes in the 2000s. The B12/60 and the stunning MG-Lola EX257 proved that the Huntingdon factory could still build world-class chassis. They became the chassis of choice for Rebellion Racing and Dyson Racing, keeping the privateer flame alive in the face of diesel-powered dominance from Audi and Peugeot.
To walk through the history of Lola is to walk through the history of the sport itself. From the muddy fields of 1950s club racing to the high-tech corridors of modern Le Mans, the “T” numbers (T70, T332, T600) tell a story of constant evolution. Eric Broadley was not a showman like Colin Chapman or a dictator like Enzo Ferrari. He was a pragmatist. He understood that a racing car is a tool, and a tool must work. Lola cars were rarely the most radical, but they were almost always the best-built, the most driveable, and the most reliable. They were the cars that allowed thousands of drivers, from wealthy amateurs to future World Champions, to realize their dreams. Lola was the great enabler of motorsport, the silent giant upon whose shoulders the sport stood for fifty years.
Type
Foundation Year
Country
Founder/s
Headquarters
Type
Foundation Year
Country
Founder/s
Headquarters
About this brand
In the sprawling, high-octane history of motorsport, there are the aristocrats—the Ferraris and Lotuses—who raced for glory and national pride. And then, there was Lola. Lola was the merchant, the arms dealer, the pragmatic genius who supplied the weapons for the world’s racing wars. If you were a privateer with a chequebook and a thirst for victory, whether you wanted to race at Le Mans, Indianapolis, or the local club circuit, you went to Huntingdon. You went to see Eric Broadley. For five decades, Lola Cars was the backbone of the grid, the “Garagista” king that built more racing cars than any other manufacturer in history. To dismiss Lola as merely a customer car builder is to miss the point entirely. Lola was a phenomenon, a brand that proved that a small British engineering firm could out-think and out-build the industrial giants of the world, creating machines of breathtaking beauty and devastating speed along the way.
The story is inseparable from its founder, Eric Broadley. A quiet, unassuming civil engineer (and cousin to the aforementioned Derek Bennett of Chevron, proving that genius ran in the family), Broadley built his first car, the Broadley Special, in 1957. It was an instant success. By 1958, he had founded Lola Cars. The name, derived from the popular song “Whatever Lola Wants, Lola Gets,” was a statement of intent. The first production car, the Mk1, was a Formula Junior revelation. It was low, light, and handled with a delicacy that made everything else look agricultural. It set the template for the Broadley philosophy: clean aerodynamics, robust engineering, and adaptability.
But the car that truly launched Lola into the stratosphere—and inadvertently changed the course of automotive history—was the Mk6 GT. Unveiled in 1963, it was a stunner: a mid-engined, monocoque coupé powered by a Ford V8. It was compact, aggressive, and incredibly advanced. It caught the eye of Ford, who was looking for a way to beat Ferrari. Ford bought the car, hired Broadley, and used the Mk6 as the DNA for the GT40. But Broadley was an independent spirit. He hated the corporate suffocation of Ford. He took his money, left the GT40 project after a year, and returned to Huntingdon to build his own vision of the ultimate sports racer.
The result was the Lola T70. If you close your eyes and imagine a 1960s sports car, you are likely picturing a T70. Whether as the open-top Spyder that dominated the early years of the Can-Am series or the menacing MkIIIB Coupé that raced at Le Mans and Daytona, the T70 is a masterpiece. Powered by a thundering Chevrolet V8, it was the privateer’s hammer. In 1966, John Surtees—the only man to win World Championships on two wheels and four—piloted a factory T70 to win the inaugural Can-Am championship. It was a brutal, beautiful demonstration of power, and it established Lola as the premier builder of “Big Banger” sports cars. The T70 MkIIIB, with its swooping lines and Kamm tail, remains one of the most aesthetically pleasing shapes ever to grace a racetrack, famously winning the 1969 24 Hours of Daytona against the factory Porsches.
While the sports cars were grabbing headlines, Lola was quietly conquering America on another front: Indianapolis. Broadley had a fascination with the Indy 500, and his T90 put Graham Hill in Victory Lane in 1966 (though officially a “Red Ball Special,” it was a Lola). This began a romance with the Brickyard that would last for decades. In the 1980s and 90s, through a partnership with the cigar-chomping American importer Carl Haas, Lola became the default choice for CART/IndyCar teams. The rivalry between Lola, Reynard, and March defined the golden era of American open-wheel racing. The pinnacle came in 1993, when Nigel Mansell, the reigning F1 World Champion, jumped into a Newman/Haas Lola T93/00 and stormed to the IndyCar title on his first attempt. The sight of the “Red Five” Lola screaming around ovals is etched into the memory of every 90s race fan.
But Broadley’s genius was perhaps most evident in the brutal, ground-shaking world of Formula 5000. This series, which pitted 5.0-litre V8-powered single-seaters against each other, was a test of bravery and chassis stiffness. The Lola T330 and its evolution, the T332, were the absolute kings of this domain. Driven by masters like Brian Redman and Mario Andretti, the T332 was virtually unbeatable in the mid-70s. It was a simple, effective, and devastatingly fast machine that relied on mechanical grip and brute force. It is widely regarded as the greatest F5000 car ever built.
Formula 1, however, remained the elusive mistress. Lola never ran a full, long-term “factory” team in the traditional sense, preferring to build cars for others. The “Hondola” of 1967 (the Honda RA300) won the Italian Grand Prix with John Surtees, a chassis built by Lola but badged as a Honda. They built cars for Graham Hill’s Embassy team, for Larrousse, and for Scuderia Italia. Occasionally, these cars shone—Aguri Suzuki scored a podium at Suzuka in a Lamborghini-powered Lola—but they were often hampered by budget constraints. The disastrous MasterCard Lola project of 1997, which failed to qualify for its first race and folded immediately, was a sad footnote that unfairly tarnished the brand’s F1 legacy.
Yet, Lola’s resilience was legendary. In the late 70s, as the ground-effect revolution swept motorsport, Broadley was at the forefront. The Lola T600 was the first purpose-built ground-effect sports prototype. It decimated the IMSA GTP field in 1981, rendering the Porsche 935s obsolete overnight and forcing the creation of the Porsche 962. It was classic Lola: seeing a regulatory opportunity and engineering a superior solution before anyone else.
Even after the company faced financial ruin in the late 90s and was bought by Martin Birrane, the spirit survived. The new era saw Lola become a titan of Le Mans prototypes in the 2000s. The B12/60 and the stunning MG-Lola EX257 proved that the Huntingdon factory could still build world-class chassis. They became the chassis of choice for Rebellion Racing and Dyson Racing, keeping the privateer flame alive in the face of diesel-powered dominance from Audi and Peugeot.
To walk through the history of Lola is to walk through the history of the sport itself. From the muddy fields of 1950s club racing to the high-tech corridors of modern Le Mans, the “T” numbers (T70, T332, T600) tell a story of constant evolution. Eric Broadley was not a showman like Colin Chapman or a dictator like Enzo Ferrari. He was a pragmatist. He understood that a racing car is a tool, and a tool must work. Lola cars were rarely the most radical, but they were almost always the best-built, the most driveable, and the most reliable. They were the cars that allowed thousands of drivers, from wealthy amateurs to future World Champions, to realize their dreams. Lola was the great enabler of motorsport, the silent giant upon whose shoulders the sport stood for fifty years.