Monday, January 11, 2016

Lotus or Shadow?

The February 2016 edition of RaceTech magazine has an interesting article on wind-tunnels by their F1 insider, 'Expert Witness'. However, there may be an error in the caption to one of the photos which accompanies the article, (below).


The caption claims that the photo depicts a Lotus wind-tunnel test from 1972. Which would be surprising, because one would expect a 1972 car to sport a much taller airbox. In fact, not only is the airbox wrong, but the nose doesn't look like a Lotus nose at all.

If I were pressed to identify the model, I would suggest that it is actually a version of Tony Southgate's Shadow DN8 (below), probably from 1976-1977.


Certainly, if it does transpire to be a Lotus wind-tunnel test from 1972, it opens a whole new time-travelling window on F1 espionage in the 1970s...


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