1969 LOLA T70 MK3B

CURRENT OWNER CHRIS BEIGHTON

Few race cars of the late 1960s have the imposing presence and brutal force of the Lola T70 MK3B, and chassis SL76/148 has an extensive history over the course of half a century. As one of Eric Broadley’s landmark designs, the sports-racing car was Lola’s offering against the might of Ford, Ferrari and Porsche in sportscar racing, marrying a five-litre Chevrolet V8 engine to a very effective monocoque chassis.

Chassis SL76/148 was sold to Picko Troberg in Sweden when new in the spring of 1969, and both Troberg and Ronnie Peterson raced it before it was sold in September that year to Thanetbased Avalon Racing for Barrie Smith.

Smith did a lot of races across Europe in

’70, including at the daunting temporary track at Phoenix Park in Dublin.

The Lola then went to an individual who bravely road-registered it, and current owner Chris Beighton has the logbook and documents. Richard Bond took it back into racing in 1975 and then it was sold to Marsh Plant and raced by Gerry Marshall.

In the mid-1980s chassis 148 was David Piper’s rental car and he hired it to various drivers over more than a decade, including Jonathan Baker. It was then in the hands of a private collector before Beighton bought it a decade ago. Having raced pretty much continuously for four decades, the Lola was fairly tired by the time Beighton took it on and was ready for a comprehensive rebuild.

It went to model expert Clive Robinson, who had worked on it in period. When he took the monocoque apart to rebuild it, Robinson found a spanner he lost in the car in the early 1970s. A lot of the metal is original and Beighton has many of the original parts that have had to be replaced. Since the rebuild it’s been raced in the Masters Historic Sports Car Championship, running a Steve Warriorbuilt five-litre Chevrolet engine.