26/06/2011 by michaeloliver.

Well, it’s been rather a long time since I updated this blog! No excuses really, other than laziness. However, I do have some interesting news on my previous post, four years on.

After having run out of all my other options, a couple of years ago I did the thing that I should have done in the first instance - called The Star picture desk directly. To my utter amazement, when I enquired whether they still had the negative in their archives, they came back to me a few days later by email to say that they did indeed have it. Not bad for a photo which appeared in a late edition of an evening newspaper 35 years ago! They announced that they could provide it to me but at a cost. When I worked out the fee they were asking, it was several hundred pounds. I explained that the photo was just for reserach purposes and wouldn’t be published but they were not prepared to budget on the fee. Now I’m never keen on paying large amounts for photos, particularly when the book they would have appeared in has already been published, so it would be largely to satisfy my own curiosity and I just felt I couldn’t justify the amount. So, regrettably, with the answer tantalisingly within my grasp, I left it.

Fast forward to the summer of 2010. Out of the blue, I received a phone call from someone in South Africa, asking me some questions about a subject I can’t reveal the details of unfortunately. I was able to help them with some detailed information and, after one or two bits of email correspondence, my contact made a comment to the effect of ‘if there is anything I can do in return for you, just let me know’.

Well, I took him at his word and explained my conundrum. My contact explained that he had some contacts at The Star and he would ’see what he could do’. A few months passed and then in May 2011 I received an email from him saying that progress had been made and that The Star were prepared to give me the photo, as long as it wasn’t for publication. A few more weeks passed and my contact came back to me to say that they couldn’t scan the negative as their negative scanner was broken.

Currently, the only way it could be scanned is if he borrows or rents a negative scanner, takes it in and does it himself, as they won’t let the negative off the premises. So near, yet so far! As he is doing me a favour, I just have to trust in my contact and leave it to him but I am absolute tenterhooks as to what the answer will be. Apparently there are other photos (unpublished) in the sequence, which may also help to shed further light on the identity of the crashed Lotus 72, after 37 years, and finally put it beyond reasonable doubt.

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05/06/2007 by michaeloliver.

You know that saying “one thing leads to another”? Well, as part of my research into Lotus 19s (an ongoing project, not sure how that is going to pan out!) I was trying to track down a driver called John Scott-Davies, who had raced a 19 at some point in the 1960s.

Flicking through a copy of the Historic Lotus Register’s regular magazine, I noticed that a John Scott-Davies was listed as handling advertising sales for the magazine. Further into the magazine, there was a piece about the same person planning a museum about Lotus and Colin Chapman in London.

Bingo, I thought, it had to be the same guy, too much of a coincidence for it not to be, surely? So I picked up the phone and asked him if he was ‘my’ John Scott-Davies, only to find out that he wasn’t the one I was looking for…he was too young!

However, the conversation continued and he mentioned that he was planning a public meeting to actually set up the organisation which would plan, develop and run the museum and would I like to come along to the meeting?

Four or five days later, a small group of around 15-20 people assembed in The Wishing Well pub in Tottenham Lane, Hornsey, formerly a pub called The Railway Hotel which was owned and run by Stanley Chapman, father of Lotus founder Colin Chapman. The meeting duly took place, to the background of a gushing fountain feeding into a large indoor fish pond, which made hearing things a bit tricky!

It turns out that the original stable block which was the place where many of the early Lotus cars were constructed, still survives intact, as does the Lotus 11 assembly shop and stores built a little later and indeed the extension with showroom at the front of the building where the (at the time) revolutionary new Elite was displayed for a short time.

John had obtained planning permission to convert the buildings to a museum from Haringey Council and apparently, the current occupiers of the site, the builders’ merchants Jewsons, had showed some interest in the project.

I could see that the proposed museum could have some very useful synergies with what I want to do with my motor racing history research (particularly building up a Team Lotus archive). The museum intends to have some kind of archive and this is something which I think I would be well suited to run, or at least have some kind of involvement in, having started my working life employed by a business information library and with my knowledge of Lotus history generally.

I volunteered to become a trustee of the charitable company which would be established following the meeting to take the project forward. Since then, we have visited the site, held regular trustees meetings and John Scott-Davies, now the group’s President, has given a talk on Lotus history at the Bruce Castle Museum in Tottenham. I have designed a logo, we have now been incorporated as a company and are pursuing charitable status and we are preparing a business plan, looking into possible funding routes and investigating possible site acquisition or leasing.

In addition, a website (www.colinchapmanmuseum.org.uk) has been established to provide a worldwide channel for information about the progress of the project.

So from one phone call about Lotus 19s, I  have ended up being a trustee of a museum project and I have to say I am enjoying it, although it is clear that there are many obstacles still standing in our way if this project is to become reality. Be sure to check this site and the museum site to see how we are getting on! And I’m still looking for ‘my’ John Scott-Davies, so if you are out there, I’d love to hear from you!

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06/04/2007 by michaeloliver.

A while back my wife Gill and I spent some time in the company of a very friendly couple, Peter and Sjoukje (pronounced Show-keeya) Argetsinger. Peter is one of three sons of Cameron Argetsinger, the man responsible for getting racing going in Watkins Glen in the US, firstly on a road course and later at a purpose-built facility which went on to host the US Grand Prix on numerous occasions and still does host major events such as Nascar and the IRL. 

The Argetsinger dynasty continues to be a much respected one in the world of motor racing, even though they are no longer involved in the day-to-day operation of Watkins Glen. Nowadays, much of their attention is focused on the International Motor Racing Research Centre (IMRRC), a wonderful library and archive located in Watkins Glen itself which houses a treasure trove of motor racing information and memorabilia of great value to people like me who research and write about the history of motor racing. Cameron is the President of the IMRRC, his wife Jean is on the Council, eldest son J.C. (who is a judge) is the Secretary and middle son and author Michael is on the Council too. Youngest son Peter, who is a racing school instructor, is not on the Council but is still a keen supporter of the project. 

I was asked to go over to the IMRRC and give a talk on the Lotus 49, a subject I am pretty familiar with due to my book, published in 1999. The Centre had the actual 1969 US Grand Prix-winning Lotus 49B, which was driven by the late Jochen Rindt, on display and wanted to put on an event themed around the car and its winning exploits 35 years before. Peter and Sjoukje were charged with making us feel welcome during our (short) stay in the Finger Lakes region. On the first night we went out for a lovely meal with them, the local wine being a real eye-opener, having already spent a fabulous time earlier in the evening down on the jetty of the Family’s lakeside holiday home, sipping wine and getting to know our hosts. 

After my presentation the next day (which I think went well although it did last slightly longer than I had planned!), we went for a meal at J.C.’s club in Elmira and spent a lovely evening in the company of the Argetsinger family, the Lotus 49’s new owner Joe Willenpart, and other family friends including Ferrari admirer Paul Medici. It was a pleasure to be able to talk with Cameron and hear his reminiscences about racing at Watkins Glen and some of the stories about the many characters (including all the top drivers) that he met in his capacity as boss of the Watkins Glen circuit. 

The next day, Michael took me round the old Watkins Glen road circuit, while Gill and Sjoukje went out for a spot of shopping. The old ‘Glen’ was a real man’s circuit, with fast sections, bumpy sections, twisty sections and a fabulous, seemingly never-ending curve towards the end of the lap to test the ‘cojones’ of the drivers. All too soon it was time to leave and head back, via Niagara Falls, to Toronto and our flight home the next day.

On the way back, Gill and I chatted about our morning’s adventures and she told me that she had enjoyed a great conversation with Sjoukje about following your dreams, even if at first sight there didn’t seem to be any financial reason (indeed often the opposite!) for doing so. Sjoukje said that if you followed your passion, the work and money would eventually follow you.  Well, it has taken several years for me to finally embrace this way of thinking but I have taken the decision to focus more on my passion, Lotus racing cars, and follow my dream. 

And it is funny how things have already started falling into place! I’ve recently become involved as a Trustee for a charitable company which plans to develop a museum dedicated to preserving the memory of Colin Chapman, founder of Lotus, and I’m also working on several Lotus-related research projects, which may end up becoming books.  At the same time, I am trying to develop a Team Lotus archive, in order to preserve the memories, diaries, photos and memorabilia of former Team Lotus personnel for future generations and I suspect that this will provide me with many more ideas for features and books in the months and years to come. Out of the blue, last weekend I had two added bonuses: firstly, someone I met at the Race Retro show at Stoneleigh gave me four boxes of slides of racing in the 1960s at the Pacific Raceways circuit at Kent, near Seattle; secondly, I was able to pick up a big pile of Lotus World magazines from the 1980s which, as well as including contemporary race reports, had a sizeable historic content, including old photos and interviews with people associated with the earlier days of Team Lotus. I was also able to find a specific edition I had been looking for which included a photo of a car I have been researching, the first such photo I have ever seen.  Lastly, I’ve had two conversations in the past week with people who want to use me to research the history of old Lotus racing cars, based on my previous record in this area.  So it seems that Sjoukje was right. I am following my passion and certainly the work appears to be coming!     

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