Lola’s last LMP1 car goes up for sale
The last Lola LMP1 was a podium cert in period. This rebuilt racer is still a winner in the right hands, says Simon de Burton
There were two LMP1 racing cars built by Lola in 2012 – this, chassis HU02, was the second and was an ALMS frontrunner
Charlie B Photography
Few names have left quite such an indelible mark across so many forms of motor sport as Lola, the company established by the late Eric Broadley in 1958 which grew to become one of the largest and longest-lived specialist racing car builders in the world.
Its wide-ranging portfolio of designs –which evolved from the original Austin Seven-based ‘Broadley Special’ – went on to include racing cars made for contesting everything from Formula 1 to Can-Am and from Formula Atlantic to Le Mans, often with unrivalled success.
In its dotage the Lola has taken part in a number of historic races; it’s a far cry from Eric Broadley’s 1958 Mark 1
Charlie B Photography
But Lola’s long run of good fortune wouldn’t last forever. The original firm went bust in 1997 after a disastrous attempt to field the first ‘full works’ Lola F1 team and was subsequently sold to Irish racing team owner, Land Speed Record driver and multiple Le Mans entrant Martin Birrane.
Birrane owned Lola until it went into administration in 2012 – just a short time after it built this B12/60 on offer with Mitchell Curated in Cheltenham, the marque’s last-ever LMP1 chassis.
It might have been the end of the line, but it was clearly no Friday afternoon job: in its original role with Rob Dyson’s hugely successful, US-based Dyson Racing, chassis HU02 scored second overall in the 2013 American Le Mans Series in the hands of (among others) former Le Mans ‘Bentley Boys’ Guy Smith and Butch Leitzinger and Dyson’s son, Chris.
To achieve the result, the car took an impressive five second places out of nine races during the season, prior to competing in that year’s Petit Le Mans at the Road Atlanta circuit – after which it was consigned to the Dyson car collection in New York state.
It remained there until 2017 when it was sold to veteran competitor Steve Tandy who used the car to win the 2018 Masters Endurance Legends series, setting an outright lap record on Silverstone’s Historic GP circuit of 1min 45.277sec in the process.
Historic racer, property tycoon and long-distance aviator Steve Brooks then bought the car, which he drove at Brands Hatch in the 2021 Masters Historic Festival to a win in the Endurance Legends race.
The current owner acquired HU02 little more than a year ago but is moving it on due to “other commitments”. Whoever buys it will be getting a well-proven endurance racer powered by a 500bhp Mazda engine that has seen less than two hours of use since a full rebuild. The Lola carbon monocoque, meanwhile, looks spectacular whether at speed or standing still.
The car will be sold with a comprehensive spares package (including two extra sets of wheels, replacement body panels, radiators, and brake and suspension parts) and a valid Masters Endurance Racing Legends technical passport, which makes for one less piece of admin to think about before hitting the track at Brands Hatch, Zandvoort, Spa, Paul Ricard, Donington Park or Mugello during this year’s European Masters season.
So if you’ve got the cash already, what are you waiting for?
2012 Lola-mazda B12/60 LMP1
On offer with Mitchell Curated. Asking: £795,000. mitchellcurated.com
Take a Le Mans XJ220 the full distance
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