You know what they say about the really beautiful girls. They’re temperamental, flighty, unpredictable, and often times, more trouble than they’re worth, but damned it if we aren’t drawn to them anyway. The Lola T70 Mk3B Coupe fits into that category of race cars. It’s gorgeous, but it was never the big hit that it was supposed to be, due to many of those little idiosyncrasies that afflict most supermodels. One particular example, in the hands of arguably the most complete and talented racing team of their era did have its day in the sun, though.
First, a little history. The T70 coupe was born from the highly successful and popular T70 Spyder that first showed up on the worldwide racing scene in 1964. By 1966, after some improvements and the introduction of the Mk2 edition, John Surtees managed to win three of six races in the CanAm series. A star was born. The cars were neat in the fact that they were designed to accept any American V8 engine. They were constructed of an aluminum monocoque chassis and with a relatively simple suspension configuration they were ripe for tuning, tweaking, and racing into the ground.
Eric Broadley, the man behind Lola, sensed a golden opportunity to expand his line and offer a coupe model of the popular Spyder. Broadley worked with a man named Tony Southgate, spending lots of time in the wind tunnel to work out a final shape that was aerodynamically efficient. Inadvertently, they also created one of the most visually stunning race cars of all time. It was a drop dead sexy show stopper.
The T70 had stout competition as its chief rivals in its most popular race trim were the Ford GT40s, and frankly, the GT40s had their way with the T70s the majority of the time. Mainly the reason for this was the inexperience of the typical Lola racer, as most were serious hobby type racers while the GT40s had lots of factory support from Ford and were campaigned by the best racers and teams of the era.
In 1967 and 1968, the T70s accomplished very little in the scope of major race victories, winning some short-distance races. None were running with any type of major manufacturer support after Aston-Martin had humiliated itself with a factory works effort that featured a woefully underpowered Aston-Martin engine that was equally as woeful in the reliability department. The car seemed destined for a life of mediocrity, campaigned by those who couldn’t afford to get into a GT40 but wanted something to compete with.
That began to change in 1969 with the introduction of the Mk3 edition of the car. A 5-speed transmission replaced the former 4-speed unit. The body was redesigned, with the nose drooped lower, and a set of neat looking covered headlights being added. Other subtle body modifications increased stability and downforce. The cars were limited by class rules to five liter engines, although many were now making good power with fuel injection and with the car’s lighter weight, they now seemed to be a legitimate threat to the GT40s.
Cue our heroes.
Roger Penske was fed up having to deal with McLaren because he never got the good stuff. The factory works team got the most cutting-edge cars and always seemed to be one step ahead in the chassis and suspension department. Penske heard of the new Lola coupe and got on the horn to Broadley, ordering one in Sunoco blue. Meanwhile, Mark Donohue phoned up their de facto engine builder Traco and ordered a batch of 305ci small-block Chevys equipped with (of all things!) Lucas fuel injection.
Donohue received the car roughly three weeks before the Daytona 24 hour race. It was to be a major thrash. The first problem that Donohue tried to confront was that of spring rates. The Daytona course uses part of the high banking on the Stock Car track. Because of that, the high speeds and downforce producing capability of this body were going to exert massive pressures on springs. It was a tricky math game to play and Donohue was taking a shot at it. After settling on a number and trying every spring they had, it was clear that they needed something special, so he called in a favor from Chevrolet. Their engineers set to work and soon they had a set of special springs produced and shipped them out the back door to Donohue.
After all the testing work was done and the car was on the track, the three-week wonder was looking good. They qualified the car in the second spot behind Vic Elford (remember him from the Chaparral 2J?) in a Porsche 908. The car had its share of issues mainly with the exhaust headers which were made in a mad rush before the race. The headers, which from our research we believe were gas welded, kept breaking. The team had them on and off the car multiple times, and the quickest was a 15-minute turn around later on in the race. Although those stops cost them time, it is important to note that the mighty Porsches suffered a staggering number of problems (which affected all the cars because they were identical) thusly allowing Donohue to cruise to the victory. It was the first and last major event a T70 coupe would ever win.
The team traveled to the next race at Sebring with high hopes coming off the Daytona victory, but the Lola was not having any of it. The team beefed up areas that they saw as being weak and made some driveline changes to increase the longevity of the motors. Unfortunately, those changes were not enough as a major rear suspension failure put them out of contention of Sebring.
Despite the fact that things went down the tubes at Sebring, Chevrolet had begun talking to the team about going to LeMans and running the car. Sunoco was consulted and they were interested in funding the trip as well. With the sour taste from the race in their mouth but a sense of future hope, Donohue flew back to race HQ in Philadelphia while two crew members began to drive the rig back home. Stopping off in Daytona for a night of partying to work off the crappy weekend, the guys cut loose and woke up to find their truck and everything in it stolen.
A massive search was put on and the truck was found less than a day after the theft was reported. It had been stripped of nearly everything, and in the back they found pieces of the race car. The thieves had hacked it beyond repair and picked it clean like a chicken carcass. Donohue called Chevrolet and Sunoco and told them that the Lola effort was over and that the LeMans trip was not possible.
Amazingly, Donohue somehow got a tip on the location of all the stolen stuff and accompanied police on the raid. He found all of the missing parts, the missing motor from the car (which the thieves were putting in a Shelby Cobra) and all the other stuff from the tow rig. It was about a month after the initial theft and didn’t change anything about the car’s future, but it did give Donohue some closure on the situation and the thieves got some time in the cooler.
Believe it or not, the team put the Lola back together with a muffler and A/C, stuck a stock 350 in it and sold it as a street car to a guy in California, who for years pestered the team to send its mechanics to work on the car and tune it up.
Remember what we said about the beautiful girls? This one totally lived up to that old saying.
