Lotus Type 62 2021.
Lotus Type 62 2021. Radford Project 62: the British will revive the old Lotus model for the wealthy auto gourmets.
The British are the famous Formula 1 driver Jenson Button, TV presenter and genius mechanic Ant Ansted, designer Mark Stubbs and entrepreneur Roger Behle, who now own the legendary coachbuilder Radford.
The new owners promise a host of exciting small-scale cars in the future, and the first will be a sports car based on the Lotus Type 62 racing car developed in the late 1960s.
Connoisseurs of the British car industry know and remember the London studio Harold Radford, founded in 1948 by Harold Radford.
The studio was engaged in the alteration of standard cars and the construction of original bodies, thanks to him the Bentley MKVI 4¼-liter Countryman station wagon and the Ford GT40 prototype saw the light, the same studio made the original Mini for all four members of the Beatles group.
In the mid-70s, the studio closed, and now the rights to his name belong to the above-named four quite young people and successful people who have the experience, time and money to promote their own automobile company, the full name of which is H. Radford (Coachbuilders) Ltd.
In its recent history, Radford will make not just bodies, but full-fledged cars, so it’s time to talk about a new car brand.
The key element of the collective appears to be Ant Ansted from the popular garage TV show «Scammers» (original Wheeler Dealers).
Ansted came to the transfer in 2017 to replace Ed Chyna, after which the Scammers began not only to restore and sell old cars, but to make full-fledged exclusive projects in the spirit of West Coast Customs, sometimes with a radical alteration of the body.
In addition, Ansted last year converted the Mazda MX-5 into an Alfa Romeo 158/159 formula car and began selling it to everyone as a DIY garage kit. In general, a person knows how to work with «hardware».
Stubbs will, of course, be responsible for the design of the new Radford models. The button will help with chassis settings and tests. Behle will arrange all business processes.
The Lotus Type 62, which revived Radford chose as the inspiration for its debut project, is the most extreme racing evolution of the Lotus Europa released in 1969.
In terms of design, Europa and Type 62 have little in common, but the developers have kept the external similarity on purpose. The 2.0-liter Lotus 907 engine produced about 240 hp.
This week, Radford published the first renders of its new product, tentatively titled Project 62. The external resemblance to the historical prototype is obvious, but the entire filling will be completely new, developed in collaboration with Lotus specialists.
There are no details yet — perhaps the aluminum platform of the Elise model, which is about to be discontinued, will be taken as a basis.
Project 62 will be released in 62 copies, applications for them are already being accepted, a full-fledged premiere will take place before the end of this year.
Potential customers should be attracted not only by the exclusive novelty itself, but also by the opportunity to cook in the company of celebrities, «grind» with them the individual characteristics of each car.
That is, most likely, there will be no problems with customers — the market of exclusive cars is now growing by leaps and bounds, so even the long-suffering British brand Bristol has recently been revived again.
Posted in 
Tags: