Lotus 19, a History
KEVIN WHITTLE, Whittle Books, £45 from www.historic-lotus-books.com
That author Kevin Whittle has eked out an entire book on the lesser-known Lotus 19 is comment-worthy; that he has effortlessly packed more than 150 pages of this portrait A4 hardback with pictures, details, history and stats is nothing short of remarkable. In all, there are over 150 photos and 60 illustrations, while decent-quality repro on lavish 175gsm art paper makes sure they sing.
So, the Lotus 19? With just 17 built and sparse major success despite a long international career, it may not have the profile of its sports-racer predecessors the 15 and 11, but it was a true watershed car for the marque. It combined in its brief two-year (with reprise) production life all the best of what had come before and, crucially, some of what was to come next with the 23 and fearsome V8 Lotus 30. Developed from the formula-traversing Lotus 18 – the marque’s first mid-engined racer – a glassfibre body was wrapped around a widened spaceframe and powered by a Coventry Climax engine driving through the ‘queerbox’. Initially, at least…
The car was popular with Americans but – and this will come as no surprise – they started to wonder whether a rather larger unit could be crammed into this first mid-engined Lotus sports-racer. That was how five Monacos, as Chapman dubbed the 19, came to have American V8s, from 3.5-litre Buick to Ford 289 (for the 19B, driven by Dan Gurney for John Klug) via Chevy smallblock. One had a Ferrari V12!
Whittle – as ardent a Lotus fan, author, racer and historian as you could hope to meet – covers every aspect of the 19: racing success and failure to 1970, mechanical spec (with lots of pictures), surviving cars and even his own rather splendid replica.
My only criticism is that I found the small serif font challenging – but that’s just my age.
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