John Ingham wrote:
> From: "John Ingham" <jcingham@hotmail.com>
>
> Rod wrote:
>
> >Regarding that Motor Racing article, is there a scanned copy on a website
> >anywhere? That would make a nice addition to the collection even being
> >pre-Elan. I have (packed away) most of the year 1955 Autocar (to which I
> >subscribed before I had a driver's license) and one of them has a nice
> >article about driving a Mark IX up to northern England on the road....
> >great stuff.
>
> Lotus were written up a lot in the 50s motoring/racing magazines and only
> the long features have made it to Brooklands reprints series. I would guess
> it had a lot to do with most motoring journalists of the time having an
> engineering background and Chapman certainly supplied them with things to
> write about. One autojumble find had a photo and mini-article about a diff
> oil cooler fitted to UPE 6 (Chapman's IX). Apparently it came off a few
> weeks later becauseit didn't work.
>
> (I'd happily scan what I have, but I don't have a scanner and we just moved,
> so the magazines are *somewhere*.)
Yes, exactly my problem.
>
>
> Also, Chapman's genius must have been very attractive to an engineering
> oriented journalist. I owned a VI for a few years and never ceased to be
> amazed at how sophisticated the result was from its humble origins,
> especially when we pulled up to a Ford Pop at a stop light. No comparison!
> With his kind of mind at work, who could have resisted writing about the
> cars?
>
> Which reminds me of an anecdote a former 50s racer told me. Staring at the
> VI he said, 'Colin was always lying on the grass in that checked shirt of
> his with his head propped on one hand, and you'd say 'What are you doing?'
> and he would reply, 'Oh...thinking..."
>
> John
Priceless!
Rod
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