Lotus’s first Formula One race was the Monaco Grand Prix in 1958. Graham Hill, who has won the Monaco Grand Prix five times, drove the race car. Lotus did not win, but it did do well. The sleek Lotus-Climax Type 12 chassis #353 from 1957 to 1958, which looks like a hot dog bun with a big hole in one end, is an important car in the history of racing. It is also going to be auctioned off soon at Bonhams’ “Les Grandes Marques à Monaco,” which is held in the same country where it started its Formula One. Bonhams says this racecar is “one of the most historically significant of all British Formula 1 Grand Prix cars,” and he thinks it will sell quickly. Lotus’s founder, Colin Chapman, made the single-seat Type 12 in 1956 so that it could be raced in Formula One in 1958. From what Bonhams knows, only seven of these slim cars were made in 1957, and five of them competed as works entries. After that, the Type 12 was bought by the Italian driver Maria Theresa de Filippis, who became the first woman to compete in Formula One. Several drivers then bought it and had it sent to Australia, where it was carefully fixed up so that it could work again. At the event in Monaco, the sale house will showcase several interesting cars, such as the Lotus. One of them is the Delahaye 175 S, which won the Monte Carlo Rally. It could fetch more than $700,000 at sale. The 1971 Maserati Ghibli has less than 22,000 kilometers on it, and I would buy it if I had the money. The Lotus is expected to sell for between $315,000 and $424,000.
