Graham Hill’s first Lotus GP car for Monaco sale

The first Lotus Formula 1 contender – and the car in which Graham Hill cut his teeth at motor racing’s highest level – is to go under the hammer in Monaco on May 10.

Lotus 12 chassis 353 will be a star lot at Bonhams’ sale, which takes places during the weekend of the Monaco Historic Grand Prix. It is estimated to fetch between £250,000 and £335,000.

Built for the new 1.5-litre Formula 2 class in 1957, the Lotus 12 was the marque’s first true single-seater and was adapted the following year for F1 – against Colin Chapman’s initial instincts and ambition.

Pressure from his racing drivers, plus the increasing might of Coventry Climax and its oversized FPF F2 engines in grand prix racing, pushed Chapman to dip a toe in F1. At Silverstone’s International Trophy on May 3, 1958, Hill drove this car, fitted with a prototype 1960cc engine to eighth place, while team-mate Cliff Allison was the first F2 car home in sixth in another Lotus 12. Hill’s first world championship start came next, at the Monaco Grand Prix – a race he would go on to become most associated with thanks to his five wins in the principality. But at the first time of asking Hill was out of the race on the 70th lap after 353 lost a wheel following a half-shaft failure.

The car was subsequently sold to privateer John Fisher and driven in 1959 by Maria Theresa di Filippis. Then via Frank Gardner it emigrated Down Under, to Australia, where it passed through various hands, yet remained in remarkably original order. It has been restored by its current Australian owner.

Chassis 353 also has a direct connection to Motor Sport via our renowned continental correspondent Denis Jenkinson, who, so legend has it, borrowed it from Chapman to try on open roads on Christmas Day 1957 – which became known as the Figgy Pudding Grand Prix.

More on that adventure to follow in our next issue.

The actual Lotus 12 on sale at Bonhams made the cover of May 1958’s Motor Sport