Lola

Lola, a photo by William 74 on Flickr.

One of the legendary names in motorsports, Lola built cars for many formulae, including F1, 2, 3, 5000, Atlantic, and various USAC and Indy Car series. But they were probably best known for their sports cars-Lola's original GT was the progenitor to Ford's GT40, and the company was successful in endurance racing through much of the sixties.

The T70 was probably Lola's most successful sports car, and the hot setup in the early days of the Can-Am. The car's first major win came in 1965, with Walt Hansgen's win at Laguna Seca, and John Surtees went on to win the '66 championship running his own Chevrolet-powered example. Within a couple of seasons the McLaren M6 became unbeatable, despite improvements to the Lola (including a coupe version). However the T70's low(ish) cost and reliability helped it remain a popular racing car until the early 70's. They remain so today in historic racing.

This is a '67 Mark III spider, and was photographed this past summer at Road America.