Lola T260
The T260, designed by Bob Marston with Eric Broadley overseeing, comprised a full monocoque in L72 and NS4 light alloys bonded and riveted together with the fuel bags in either side of the tub with a total capacity of 60 gallons. The oil tank was contained in the rear of the left-hand fuel section. The rear of the monocoque reached to the back of the engine which was sandwiched between two bulkheads, a bell-housing supported the gearbox and absorbed suspension loads.
Cooling was via two brass-finned Serck radiators mounted behind the driver’s shoulder level and fed by two large NACA ducts on the top of the bodywork, the radiators vented through the large louvres in the rear bodywork. Two oil coolers were mounted behind the water radiators and used the same ducts, an additional transmission cooler lay flat over the gearbox. The bodywork was evolved following extensive tests in the Specialised Mouldings wind tunnel and featured a short, bluff nosecone with gauze-covered holes on the top to equalise pressure. At the base of the nose were two air ducts to feed air to the front discs, at the rear two ram pipes on the top of the rear body section collected the cooling air for the rear discs.
The front suspension on the T260 consisted on unequal length wishbones, the upper ones were triangulated to form bell-cranks that operated Bilstein dampers and coil springs which lay almost horizontally across the front of the tub. Rack and pinion steering was ahead of the front suspension. At the rear there was a short adjustable top link and a long radius arm attaching to the front engine bulkhead, a lower member extended rearwards to a cross-member bolted to the rear face of the gearbox. The springs and dampers fixed to the lower member and transmitted their load to tubular outriggers on the gearbox bell-housing.
Lola-made centre-lock, peg-drive magnesium wheels were fitted, diameter was 15 inches with 10.5 inch front and 17 inch rear Goodyear tyres. The battery was mounted in the nose and a Graviner fire extinguisher was fitted behind the dashboard.
The engine was a 496 cu in (8.1 litres) V8 Chevrolet tuned by George Foltz, it produced some 700+ bhp and 618 lb-ft of torque, Lucas fuel injection was fitted with a Scintilla Vertex magneto and a Hewland 4-speed gearbox transmitted the power.
