Lola Cars
Lola Cars Limited is a British automobile manufacturer founded in 1958 by Eric Broadley in Bromley, England. The company is now owned by Till Bechtolsheimer, who purchased it in 2022. Lola Cars endured for more than fifty years to become one of the oldest and largest manufacturers of racing cars in the world. Lola started by building small front-engine sports cars, and branched out into Formula Junior cars before diversifying into a wider range of sporting vehicles. In 2012, Lola Cars stopped operations. Lola returned to motorsport in 2024 by joining the Formula E World Championship as an entrant and a powertrain supplier in a technical partnership with Yamaha.
History
Lola Cars was a brand of the Lola Group, which combined former rowing boat manufacturer Lola Aylings and Lola Composites, that specialized in carbon fibre production.Lola was acquired by Martin Birrane in 1997 after the unsuccessful MasterCard Lola attempt at Formula One. After a period in bankruptcy administration, Lola Cars International ceased trading on 5 October 2012. The administrator, CCW Recovery Solutions, was unable to find a suitable buyer and the firm ceased trading on 5 October 2012, laying off the last employees.
On 16 October 2012, it was announced in the competition press that some assets of Lola Cars were acquired by Multimatic Inc. and The Carl A. Haas Automotive company. In addition to the asset purchase, Multimatic and Haas obtained a licence agreement to use the Lola Cars name and intellectual property.
In late 2021, Till Bechtolsheimer bid and subsequently bought Lola in June 2022. The assets bought include the brand and trademarks, intellectual property, and the Lola Technical Centre. Bechtolsheimer subsequently made it clear he has the intention of reviving the company within two years. He expressed an ambition to have a car on the track in the 2024–25 time frame. Bechtolsheimer drove a Lola for the first time in November 2022—a 1958 Mk1 at Harris Hill Raceway. In October 2024, Lola acquired Paceteq, an automotive industry data technology and software company in its bid to accelerate its development after entering Formula E.
Sports cars
Early days – the 1960s
Lola was one of the top chassis suppliers in the 1960s. After its small front-engined sports cars came various single-seaters including Formula Junior, Formula 3, Formula 2 and Formula 1 cars.Broadley designed the Ford V8 powered Lola Mk.6 coupe. Ford took a keen interest in this and paid Broadley to put the company on hold for two years and merge his ideas with Roy Lunn's work, giving rise to the Ford GT40. Initial work was done at the Lola works at Bromley before moving to a factory on the Slough Trading Estate. Broadley managed to release himself from this contract after a year and started developing his own cars again, retaining the Slough factory, which was in Lola's name. Broadley started off in sports cars with the Lola T70 and its successors which were used successfully all over the world from the World Championship for Makes to the CanAm series, until 1973. In 2005, Lola announced that a new batch of T70 coupés, to the original specifications, would be released. These were to be homologated for historic racing and there was talk of a one-make series for the cars. The Slough built cars incorporated the letters 'SL' in their chassis numbers, just as the cars built at Bromley had incorporated 'BR'.
1970s
Various Group 5 and Group 6 sports cars including the T210 and T212, and T28x/29x/38x/39x series were also built, competing with Chevron, March and others. Alain de Cadenet's Le Mans 'specials' tended to be based on Lola technology.Lola dominated the CanAm sports car series when it was revived in the late 1970s, but many motorsport fans do not consider the single-seater Formula 5000-based cars from this era to be true sports cars, despite their full bodywork and enclosed wheel-wells.
1980s and early 1990s
Lola introduced the T600/T610 range for IMSA GTP racing in the early 1980s – these were fitted with a range of engines including Cosworth, Mazda and Chevrolet, as well as the novel Polimotor engine built using composite materials. Derivatives of this car were successful for some time in IMSA and Group C racing. Later Lola Group C and GTP cars tended to be built specifically for manufacturer programmes, specifically the later Nissan Group C entries and the Chevrolet Corvette GTP program. Lola also built a car for the 3.5 L Group C formula, the T92/10, but the championship collapsed before this could be fully developed.Late 1990s and 2000s
More recently, Lola produced a range of sports cars for Le Mans-style racing starting with the B98/10, which was successful in the European market but less so in the USA. The B2K/10, with its additional central headlight reminiscent of a cyclops or a locomotive was more notable for its looks than its performance. While Lola has had limited success in the top class of the sport versus factory cars like the BMW V12 LMR and Audi R8, Lola has enjoyed periods of dominance in the second class, including championship class victories in the American Le Mans Series, although this has been threatened in the ALMS LMP2 by works-supported entries from Acura and Porsche.A dedicated LMP675 car was built for MG in 2001, powered by a two-litre four-cylinder AER turbocharged engine. This was entered at Le Mans by the works team as the MG-Lola EX257, and was also run as the Lola B01/60 by private entrants. Later developments of this car have been fitted with assorted small V8s and the chassis was developed into recent customer LMP1 and LMP2 chassis.
An updated version of the Lola LMP2 came in 2005 with the introduction of the Lola B05/40. It quickly became a contender in LMP2 by taking class honours in 2005 and 2006 at Le Mans with Ray Mallock Limited. It also earned several class wins in the American Le Mans Series in 2005 and 2006 with Intersport Racing, including a second-place overall finish in the 2006 12 Hours of Sebring. In 2007, extensive updates were made to the chassis, to accommodate the all-new Acura powerplant run by Fernandez Racing. In addition, an essentially brand new LMP2 prototype, the B07/40, was built to house the new AER-based Mazda engine. This new version is being run exclusively in the U.S. by B-K Motorsports.
Lola also updated its LMP1 challenger in 2006 with the introduction of the B06/10. The car was run in the American Le Mans Series by Dyson Racing and in the Le Mans Series and the 24 Hours of Le Mans by UK-based Chamberlain-Synergy Racing. Chamberlain continued to run the machine in 2007 and 2008, while the former Dyson cars have been run off and on in the ALMS by Cytosport Racing and Intersport Racing. As with its LMP2 program, the 2007 calendar year saw Lola introduce further upgrades with the debut of the B07/10, which saw action in the Le Mans Series and the 24 Hours of Le Mans with Charouz Racing and the Swiss Spirit team.
Lola took over the Multimatic franchise in Grand-Am's Daytona Prototype category in 2007. Krohn used his Riley cars at the 24 Hours of Daytona in 2008 but switched to the new cars later in the season.
Lola also introduced a pair of closed-cockpit Le Mans prototypes in 2008, the first of which is the B08/60 running in the P1 category. The first B08/60 was raced by the Charouz team and featured an Aston Martin V12 engine to GT1 specification.
The B08/80 built to P2 regulations was first raced by Sebah Racing and continued racing in the 2009 and 2010 seasons.
2010s
It was announced on 21 July 2010, that Lola would be building the B11/40 to comply with the new 2011 LMP2 regulations. The car was to be a carbon fibre open-top monocoque race car featuring an all-carbon bodykit, quick-release removable rear bodywork including a stabilization fin on the engine cover which is a safety requirement of the new regulations. However, on 16 May 2012, it was reported that Lola Cars was entering financial administration.Multimatic, a subsequent owner of Lola assets, supplied two Lola B12/80 LMP2 chassis' to Mazda for IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship competition. The cars were powered by turbocharged inline-four Mazda diesel powerplants in 2014 and 2015, and a gasoline-powered turbo inline-four in 2016. All of the WeatherTech Sports Car Championship's Prototype-class chassis were retired at the end of the 2016 season in favour of a new specification, marking the end of Mazda's use of the Lola chassis.