| Lotus maven John Entwistle on Ed Mackey's
car:
"Mackey's chassis #236 is one of seven
"wide Chassis" Elevens constructed in early 1956. They represent
one of Chapman's few mistakes in interpreting rules. They were build
to conform to his interpretation of the FIA Appendix C rules for sports
cars, and had a wider chassis center section to provide the required shoulder
width in the cockpit. Some of these cars were raced at Sebring and
LeMans and those cars can be identified by the fuel filler located in the
center of the scuttle.
Ignazio Lozano purchased and raced one
of these cars in California after he drove it at Sebring in 1956.
Pat Pigott may have had another. Two of the cars were shown at Earl's
court in 1956 and did not go to Sebring or LeMans. #236 is one of
them. Chapman soon determined that the standard Eleven chassis configuration
met the letter of the rules and so there were no more wide chassis cars.
The car was sold to Jay Chamberlain in
the US after the Earl's court show. It was most probably the car
used during the press announcment introducing Jay as the US West Coast
distributor for Lotus cars. I have not yet determined who raced the
car with its original Climax motor, it may have been Jack Webb of "Dragnet"
fame as there is a photo of him trying out an Eleven which is most probably
#236.
The Climax motor was lunched at some
point (I still have many of the broken bits) and the car was converted
to Alfa 1300 power by Ed Mackey, who was a long time Cal Club Alfa racer.
Ed always used number 212. Several of the program scans on Frank
Sheffield's web site show Ed racing the Alfa powered Eleven from late
1961 through 1963.
The photo on your web site shows the
car with an unusual looking head fairing, the characteristic "Appendix
C" windscreen, and the bulge in the bonnet to clear the Alfa motor.
Artifacts and remnants of all of these com- ponents are clearly evident
in #236 as purchased from Joe Dykzuel in 2000. I have some "during
restoration" photos of the car if you are interested in putting them on
your site.
Bob Engberg posted a "mysteries" entry
on your site looking for additional information on this car but so far
no luck."
From Etceterini expert John DeBoer:
(12-18-07)
"Bob Engberg asked about Ed Mackey (not
"Mackay") and his Lotus XI with race #212. Mackey's "Lotus-Alfa" entries
(race #212) came from Topanga, CA during 1961-63. The car was Alfa Romeo-powered
and was listed in entries generally as 1450cc. The earliest entry I've
seen (1961) has the car listed as being white and the engine at 1487cc
so there is the chance that the car was modified a bit in the 1961/62 time
period. Mackey previously raced a Giulietta spyder in the 1959-61 time
period." |
