The Lotus 38, designed by Colin Chapman and Len Terry, was built to win the Indianapolis 500. The 38 was a reinvention of the earlier Lotus 29 and 34 Indianapolis designs and was built with a full monocoque tub chassis. It was powered by the same Ford V8 four-cam engine with petrol injection used in the 34, producing around 500 bhp. Although the 38 was significantly larger than the Formula 1 cars of the time, it was overshadowed by the massive American roadsters. The 38 was also specially designed with an offset suspension, which was theoretically better suited to the oval track of the Indy 500. However, this type of suspension never caught on, as it made the car's handling rather peculiar. A total of eight Lotus 38s were built.
The Lotus 38 became the spearhead of the "British Invasion" of American motorsport, as it was the first mid-engined car to win the Indy 500. Driven by Scotsman Jim Clark, the car with start number 82 qualified second with an average speed of 160.729 mph over four laps, just behind Anthony Joseph Foyt in a modified Lotus 34. Clark started the race quickly and took the initiative early on, and although Foyt overtook him on the second lap, Clark retook the lead one lap later. It wasn't until lap 65 that the lead changed again, when Clark made a pit stop, before he reclaimed the lead on lap 74 when Foyt himself pitted. After that, Clark never relinquished the lead, meaning he had led 190 of the 200 laps – the most since Bill Vukovich fifteen years earlier. Clark became the first non-American winner of the Indy 500 since 1916 and went on to win the 1965 Formula 1 World Championship, even though he skipped the Monaco Grand Prix to race at The Brickyard. He remains the only driver in history to have won the Indy 500 and the Formula One World Championship in the same year.
This perfect 1:8 scale model of the Indy 500-winning car driven to victory by Jim Clark was hand-crafted and finished in the AMALGAM workshops in collaboration with and with support from Lotus regarding original surfaces, materials, archive images and drawings. The use of extremely precise digital scans of the original vehicle has enabled AMALGAM to recreate every detail true to scale. It was also thoroughly inspected by the engineering and design teams to ensure the complete accuracy of the representation.
The Lotus 38 is limited to just 99 pieces.
Price on request
