Pity the Poor Historian

Jenks used to write pieces titled, “Pity the Poor Historian”, where he would list, say, the conflicting reasons for a particular car’s retirement from a race as reported in different publications. I used to think them highly amusing until I became an historian myself. Try this as an easy historical question, “Who designed the body of the Lotus 11?”

You thought it was Frank Costin and so did I. Frank thought Frank Costin designed it and he showed the original drawings to Dennis E. Ortenburger when Ortenburger was researching his book, Flying on Four Wheels—Frank Costin and His Car Designs. After nearly 50 years, however, a guy named Grahame Walter—a man not known to motor racing, but an accredited engineer—has written a paper that claims he played a role in the design.