The Lotus 56 was a

gas turbine A gas turbine, also called a combustion turbine, is a type of continuous flow internal combustion engine. The main parts common to all gas turbine engines form the power-producing part (known as the gas generator or core) and are, in the directi ...

-powered four-wheel-driven

racing car Auto racing (also known as car racing, motor racing, or automobile racing) is a motorsport involving the racing of automobiles for competition. Auto racing has existed since the invention of the automobile. Races of various sorts were organise ...

, designed by

Maurice Philippe Maurice Philippe (30 April 1932 – 5 June 1989), also known as Maurice Phillippe, was a British aircraft and Formula One car designer. Philippe designed his first car in 1955, called the MPS (Maurice Philippe Special), while employed developin ...

Team Lotus Team Lotus was the motorsport sister company of English sports car manufacturer Lotus Cars. The team ran cars in many motorsport categories including Formula One, Formula Two, Formula Ford, Formula Junior, IndyCar, and sports car racing. More ...

's STP-backed entry in the

1968 Indianapolis 500 The 52nd International 500 Mile Sweepstakes was held at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Speedway, Indiana on Thursday May 30, 1968. For the second year in a row, one of Andy Granatelli's STP Turbine-powered machines was leading late in the race ...

. All three cars entered retired from the race,

Joe Leonard Joe Leonard (August 4, 1932 in San Diego, California – April 27, 2017 in San Jose, California) was an American professional motorcycle racer and racecar driver. Biography Motorcycle career Leonard won the first A.M.A. Grand National Champion ...

's car expiring while leading just eight laps from the finish. A variant designated the Lotus 56B was entered in three races in the

1971 Formula One season The 1971 Formula One season was the 25th season of the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile's Formula One motor racing. It featured the 22nd World Championship of Drivers and the 14th International Cup for F1 Manufacturers which were con ...

but with little success. The 4WD concept was also used in the 1969

Lotus 63 The Lotus 63 was an experimental Formula One car using four-wheel drive, designed by Colin Chapman and Maurice Philippe for the 1969 season. Chapman's reasoning behind the car was that the 3 litre engines introduced in 1966 would be better served ...

F1 car, and the wedge shape became a prominent feature of the world championships winning

Lotus 72 The Lotus 72 is a Formula One car designed by Colin Chapman and Maurice Philippe of Lotus for the 1970 Formula One season. The 72 was a pioneering design featuring inboard brakes, side-mounted radiators in sidepods (as opposed to the nose-mou ...

Indianapolis 500

The Lotus 56 used a modified version of the ST6 gas turbine used on the

STP-Paxton Turbocar The STP-Paxton Turbocar was an American racing car, designed by Ken Wallis as the STP entry in the Indianapolis 500. Rufus Parnell, who raced under the name "Parnelli Jones," drove it in the 1967 event. After leading for much of the race, a transm ...

("Silent Sam") that almost won in 1967. But the car itself was an entirely new and more advanced design which introduced a distinctive aerodynamic wedge-shaped body rather than a cigar-shape. USAC, the governing body of the Indy 500, had implemented new rules aimed at handicapping turbine powered racing cars by drastically reducing the air intake size. The Lotus 56 made up for reduced power with a sophisticated suspension design, retaining the

four-wheel drive Four-wheel drive, also called 4×4 ("four by four") or 4WD, refers to a two-axled vehicle drivetrain capable of providing torque to all of its wheels simultaneously. It may be full-time or on-demand, and is typically linked via a transfer case ...

concept of the Silent Sam, but with lighter weight, and advanced aerodynamics. Development of the 56 took place during a difficult time for Team Lotus. Team leader

Jim Clark James Clark Jr. OBE (4 March 1936 – 7 April 1968) was a British Formula One racing driver from Scotland, who won two World Championships, in 1963 and 1965. A versatile driver, he competed in sports cars, touring cars and in the Indianapol ...

, who had briefly tested the car, was killed in a

Formula 2 Formula Two (F2 or Formula 2) is a type of open-wheel formula racing category first codified in 1948. It was replaced in 1985 by Formula 3000, but revived by the FIA from 2009–2012 in the form of the FIA Formula Two Championship. The name return ...

race in Germany. His replacement and former teammate,

Mike Spence Michael Henderson Spence (30 December 1936 – 7 May 1968) was a British racing driver from England. He participated in 37 Formula One World Championship Grands Prix, debuting on 8 September 1963. He achieved one podium, and scored a total ...

, was killed at Indianapolis while testing the car. Three cars were entered for the race, to be driven by

Graham Hill Norman Graham Hill (15 February 1929 – 29 November 1975) was a British racing driver and team owner, who was the Formula One World Champion twice, winning in and as well as being runner up on three occasions (1963, 1964 and 1965). Despite ...

, and

Art Pollard Artle Lee Pollard, Jr. (May 5, 1927 – May 12, 1973), was an American racecar driver. Born in Dragon, Utah, and raised in the Portland, Oregon area, Pollard drove in the USAC Championship Car series, racing in the 1965–1973 seasons, with 84 ...

, with Leonard claiming pole position. Unlike the year before, when the STP-Paxton Turbocar easily outperformed the other cars in the race, in the race the turbine cars were relatively evenly matched with the other top contenders, much of which must be attributed to aerodynamics and chassis design and not to the turbine engine. Hill's car lost a wheel, Pollard's car suffered a fuel pump drive shaft failure, while Leonard was leading with just a handful of laps to go when his fuel pump shaft also failed. Shortly thereafter, the USAC imposed additional restrictions on turbine cars that essentially removed them from competition. For the second year in a row STP turbine cars had brought innovation to the Indy 500 and had failed to win while leading within a few laps of the end of the race. USAC subsequently banned turbine cars and four-wheel drive completely, but it was unusual enough that Mattel produced a model of the "Lotus Turbine" as one of the popular mass-produced die cast

Hot Wheels Hot Wheels is an American brand of scale model cars introduced by American toymaker Mattel in 1968. It was the primary competitor of Matchbox until 1997, when Mattel bought Tyco Toys, then owner of Matchbox. Many automobile manufacturers have ...

cars. In 1969, Art Pollard brought an Offenhauser-powered Lotus 56 to Indy. He qualified on the fourth row but retired with mechanical failure after only 6 laps.

Formula One

Colin Chapman had developed the 56 as a potential F1 contender, part of his plan to have a single design to compete at both the Indy 500 and in Formula 1. The F1 car had wings front and rear and additional fuel tanks. Designated as the 56B,

Emerson Fittipaldi Emerson Fittipaldi (; born 12 December 1946) is a Brazilian former automobile racing driver who won both the Formula One World Championship and the Indianapolis 500 twice each and the CART championship once. Moving up from Formula Two, Fittip ...

first drove it in the non-championship 1971 Race of Champions at

Brands Hatch Brands Hatch is a motor racing circuit in West Kingsdown, Kent, England, United Kingdom. Originally used as a grasstrack motorcycle circuit on farmland, it hosted 12 runnings of the British Grand Prix between 1964 and 1986 and currently host ...

. During wet practice the 56B was far and away the fastest car on the track, but the race was held in dry weather and the car was lost in midfield. At the

International Trophy The International Trophy is a prize awarded annually by the British Racing Drivers' Club to the winner of a motor race held at the Silverstone Circuit, England. For many years it formed the premier non-championship Formula One event in Britain, ...

Silverstone Silverstone is a village and civil parish in Northamptonshire, England. It is about from Towcester on the former A43 main road, from the M1 motorway junction 15A and about from the M40 motorway junction 10, Northampton, Milton Keynes and B ...

the car only lasted three laps of the first heat before suspension failure forced Fittipaldi's retirement.

Dave Walker David Walker (born 25 January 1945) is a British singer and guitarist who has been front-man for a number of bands; most notably The Idle Race, Savoy Brown and Humble Pie, he also served briefly with Fleetwood Mac and Black Sabbath. History ...

then ran the car in the

Dutch Grand Prix The Dutch Grand Prix ( nl, Grote Prijs van Nederland) is a Formula One motor racing event held at Circuit Zandvoort, North Holland, the Netherlands, from 1950 to 1985 and from 2021 onwards. It was a part of the World Championship from 1952, ...

, and had progressed from 22nd to 10th in five laps of the very wet track, before sliding off the road and into retirement. Fittipaldi used the car again in that year's 1971 Italian Grand Prix and managed to bring the fragile design home 8th.

Legacy

The Lotus 56, while never winning a race, demonstrated the importance of aerodynamics in racing cars, along with Jim Hall's Chaparrals, and effectively set the mould for open-wheeled racing cars for the next ten years. Chapman's

employed the same wedge nose shape and went on to win three world championships in Formula 1.

Formula One World Championship results

(

key Key or The Key may refer to: Common meanings * Key (cryptography), a piece of information that controls the operation of a cryptography algorithm * Key (lock), device used to control access to places or facilities restricted by a lock * Key (map ...

)

Formula One non-championship results

(

) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in ''italics'' indicate fastest lap)

References