A couple of weeks ago i bought one of those Haynes 'manuals' on the Lola GT70. In the first chapter there's a picture of Bernard Cox driving a Lola Mk1 race car -- anyone know if this is our Coupe designer?
Regards,
Steve

It is, he ran a number of race cars in the late fifties/early sixties.

https://forums.autosport.com/topic/2118 ... k-special/

Thanks for that -- I always wondered just how serious he was about the Coupe being a weekend racer -- looks like competition was in his blood. I say this because whilst we all know of the Heerey and Triple C cars other brands eg Marcos, Davrian etc seem to garner more press as competition cars.
Regards,
Steve

If you read the press about the Cox and later Heerey, it mentions potential of competition a lot, most of the contemporary rival were billed as such and I think
in the sixties that was a big appeal to most potential customers, Marcos did Lemans and such, they and Davrian were more long lived as well, GTM production was very short really, only late 67 to 71, and it was not big numbers, all factors I guess. Having the engine in the front probably helped to sell the Mini Marco too, less messing about.

I expect that there wasn't enough money around for the big events -- wonder how Deep Sanderson and Unipower funded their Le Mans efforts usually hampered by late delivery and poor reliability of BMC competitions dept power units. Marcos I think was a French funded team.
As you say the period in the 70s when the project was 'resting' didn't help and I think that when Pete and Paddy took over they were more concerned with updating the car into a practical road going machine.
Whilst I know members on here sprint, hillclimb and track day their cars IIRC I can only think of the Straker car and one built by a bloke in Wales ever making the press.
Regards,
Steve