Race return for Clark's 49

The Lotus 49 that Jim Clark drove to victory in the 1967 Dutch Grand Prix will return to racing this season in the hands of American Chris MacAllister. The car is currently being rebuilt by Classic Team Lotus and the plan is for it to race at the Monaco Historic GP over the first weekend of May.

Clark’s 1967 car, chassis R2, delivered the first Grand Prix win for the Cosworth DFV engine at Zandvoort and was later updated by the Lotus factory and rebadged as chassis R11. In 1969 Pete Lovely bought the car and raced it for more than three decades before selling it to Bob Baker.

Now owned by MacAllister, the car is being totally rebuilt. “The car is completely stripped and we’re using the original drawings for the rebuild,” said Clive Chapman of CTL. “Bob Dance worked on this car in 1967 and he’s working with us three days a week on the rebuild.”