In the pantheon of great Lotus racing cars – and there were plenty of them – there is no pedestal reserved for the 43, despite its status as a grand prix winner. Indeed, earlier this year GP Racing’s sister magazine Autosport placed it third in a list of the 10 worst GP-winning racers. Rather a harsh judgement on a car which had so much in common with its successor, the seminal 49, including the then-radical use of the engine as a stressed element of the chassis – it’s just that there’s no getting past the reputation of that engine.
There’s a popular dictum among engineers that there’s no such thing as a problem, merely a solution waiting to be found. When Formula 1 made its much-vaunted ‘return to power’ in 1966 it left teams and manufacturers scrambling for any answer within reach – and BRM’s proposition arrived with a container load of further solutions required. But Lotus, freshly in receipt of the 1965 drivers’ and constructors’ championships, desperately needed an engine for the new 3-litre era.
You might wonder why the team which finished second in the 1965 constructors’ standings (and actually outscored Lotus, but only the best six results counted for the championship) should contemplate supplying a direct competitor. The answer lies in the complicated and rapidly changing picture of engine politics in the mid-1960s. F1 wasn’t the globe-straddling mega-category it is today – sportscar racing was arguably more lucrative in terms of prize money. Aside from Ferrari, BRM and the recently arrived Honda,
