Not all images were able to load for printing. Please close the print window and try again. The Mighty Lola T70 Returns, As Both A Race- And Road-Legal Recreation
One of the most prolific 1960s race cars gets revived, and it's as brutishly impressive now as it was back then.
If ever you have attended historic racing events, it’s very likely you’ve heard the thunderous bellow of the mighty Lola T70. This mid-1960s prototype sports car was a formidable foe to the likes of Ferrari, Ford, Porsche and so on. It was built by Lola Cars in the UK and was typically fitted with American-sourced V8s, mostly from Ford and Chevrolet. The T70 came in three generations, as a coupe or a spyder, and throughout its racing career was piloted by some of the sport’s most famous names: Mark Donahue, Dan Gurney, John Surtees, and many others. Now, though, over half a decade since its competition days, it’s back as a road-legal recreation! And don’t worry, it’s every bit as potent as it was back in the day!
Lola’s Racing legacy
British engineering firm Lola Cars is one of the most respected names in motorsports. Founded in 1958 by Eric Broadley, it has won more than 500 championships and countless more races across all its racing endeavours. It was involved in pretty much anything you can think of when it comes to racing, from Formula 1 to Can-Am and from Endurance Racing to Formula E. Among its many accolades are cars like the Honda RA300, which won the 1967 Italian Grand Prix, the 1990-1991 Nissan R90CK Group C sports car that famously set a trap speed record at Le Mans, which still stands, and of course, the mighty T70.
The Lola T70 saw the light of day in 1965 as a replacement for the Mk6 sports prototype race car. Racing success came quickly, as it won the Monterey Grand Prix at the famous Laguna Seca track in its debut year, and became Can-Am Champion in 1966 at the hands of John Surtees, winning five out of the six races in the championship. It was available in several configurations throughout its lifespan, from the original T70, to the MKII Spyder, the MKIII Coupe and eventually the MKIIIB before being replaced with the T160. Over 100 were produced, which is quite a large number for a sports prototype racer such as this.
The T70 was a lightweight race car, with an aluminium monocoque chassis and fibreglass body. As said, most of them were fitted with V8s from Chevrolet, primarily the 327ci small-block, a 5.4-litre V8 putting out about 420bhp. That gave the T70 a formidable zero-to-100kph time of less than 4 seconds and a top speed close to 200mph, or 320kph if you will. Its most significant racing achievement came at the hands of Mark Donahue and Chuck Parsons, who drove the famous blue-and-yellow Sunoco Lola T70 to overall victory in the 1969 Daytona 24 Hours, against cars like the Porsche 908 and Ford GT40. In later years, it also competed directly with the Porsche 917 and Ferrari 512, two of the most iconic race cars ever made. Throughout its competitive life, the T70 is said to have won more than 230 official races. But the T70 had a different career as well, being prominently featured in the cult-classic movie Le Mans, as one of the main rivals to Steve McQueen in his Porsche 917.
The Return Of A Titan
Lola Cars went bankrupt in the 1990s after a disastrous foray into Formula 1, where it competed with a works car in only a single race, which drained the company of all its financial resources. After a period of dormancy under administrative bankruptcy, it officially ceased operations in 2012. By 2022, the name was back on the front pages, though, as it was revived to develop the drivetrain for the next-generation Formula E cars, which were introduced in 2024. Now in the hands of Till Bechtolsheimer, Lola Cars’ latest project is the revival of the T70. Not with a completely modern creation bearing the legendary name, but with a full-blown and road-legal restomod that looks and undoubtedly feels like the original in almost every way!
And to be honest, it very much looks like the real deal, with that low-slung nose with stacked headlights, wrap-around cockpit, massive ‘hips’ with air intakes right behind the doors and stretched rear section ending in a trademark cut-off tail with integrated spoiler. It still looks menacing, purposeful and absolutely gorgeous. If you’ve seen one of these in action on a track, driven hard, you will have felt its presence and command. This new T70S is a continuation of that racing legacy, built for performance and excitement, with a unique approach to sustainability in production. The construction is exact to the original, yet using modern materials and methods to give it more strength and better safety features where they matter or are a requirement to comply with regulations.
The newly developed T70S will be available in two variants, all using archival drawings and scans from an original car to achieve a perfect one-on-one recreation. The T70S will be the track-focused version, which you can see here in dark blue with yellow pinstripes in memory of the Sunoco sponsored Lola T70 that won at Daytona This puts down a similar power-to-weight ratio as the original T70, thanks to an aluminium monocoque chassis fitted with a 5.0-litre Chevrolet V8 producing about 500bhp, making light work of the 860kgs it puts on the scale. Power is fed through a Hewland five-speed transmission to the rear wheels only. The body is entirely made from a 100% petro-chemically free material that uses natural fibres and a plant-based resin. It sits on period-correct magnesium alloy wheels with knock-off wheel nuts and has a fully adjustable suspension geometry with double-wishbones on all corners.
And then there’s the T70S GT, seen here in light blue, which is a road-going spin-off. Think of it as a homologation special that never was, as Lola never built a road-going variant of the original T70. This car is slightly heavier due to safety regulations and comes with a 620bhp Chevrolet V8, mated to a Lola-spec Hewland 6-speed gearbox. The stoplight sprint to 100kph is said and done in 2.9 seconds, and the claimed top speed is 200mph. The dimensions of both cars are identical, yet you get a bit more creature comfort in the T70S GT. The interior is deliberately Spartan by design, which involved Neil Ferrier’s design company Discommon (which we’ll feature in a bit more detail soon), and is finished with Alcantara trim, a revised instrument cluster and climate control.
For the happy few
Only 16 of each of the two will be built, for an undisclosed price. Rest assured, though, as it so often goes, this is a rich man’s toy if ever there was one! Nevertheless, I love such projects even though they are reserved for the happy few, as they rekindle the magic of what is generally considered the greatest era in racing. The spirit of the 1960s and 1970s racing, represented by a modernised yet faithfully recreated icon… what’s not to like about that?
For more information, please visit LolaCars.co.uk.
Editorial Note: The information sourced and images portrayed in this article are sourced from and used with permission of Lola Cars unless stated otherwise.
