Lotus Type 66 Debuts As New/Old £1m Track Car That’s As Fast As A GT3 Racer

What you see here is a brand-new car from Lotus. Only, it doesn’t look like it, as technically, it’s also very old. Confused? That’s understandable, but the TL;Dr is that the Lotus Type 66 was to be Colin Champman’s way of taking on the Can-Am series at its height, only the project never got beyond a bunch of technical drawings and a few models. Until, that is, 2023, as Type 66 has been “rediscovered and reimagined” to provide high-calibre track day kicks.

Colin’s son Clive Chapman, managing director of Classic Team Lotus, had all the old documents, giving a starting point for the project. And it looks to have shaped up brilliantly.

Underneath Type 66 there’s a “period-representative” chassis made from extruded aluminium sections, clad in aluminium honeycomb panels. On top of all that is something more modern - a carbon fibre body, albeit one that wouldn’t look out of place on a Can-Am grid in the late sixties or early seventies.

The mid-mounted engine is a push-rod V8, and again, it’s described as “period representative”. It features forged internals, gorgeous ‘trumpet’-style air intakes poking out of the bodywork and generates 830bhp at 8,800bhp.

1,000 hours of CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) work went into the aero package, which features an enormous rear wing and a similar sense of “porosity” the Emira, Eletre and Evija, “where air travels through the vehicle, rather than around it,” Lotus says. All of the aero elements work together to generate more than 800kg of downforce at 150mph.

The CFD stuff and the carbon fibre bodywork aren’t the only modern touches mixed in with the throwback elements. The V8 powers the rear wheels via a sequential racing transmission with a reverse gear, and the multi-plate clutch has an anti-stall system. The steering column features electric power assistance, and there’s a motorsport-spec ABS. Everything comes together to make a car that “more than matches performance of modern GT3 race car,” Lotus claims.

Had the original Type 66 project actually progressed, Emerson Fittipaldi would have been the one on driving duties. Acknowledging this, the Brazilian driver - who won a championship and numerous races with Team Lotus - was present for the car’s unveiling at Monterey Car Week’s The Quail event.

In a further historical nod, production is capped at 10 units, as that’s how many races Type 66 would have been entered for during the 1970 Can-Am season. Want one? You’ll need “in excess” of £1 million to secure a Type 66.