Images: RMD
This race-ready Lola T70 Mk1 was driven by Mark Donohue, Walt Hansgen and Parnelli Jones in its day and is looking for a new owner. It’s up for sale at RMD.
The car, SL70/12, was delivered to John Mecom Racing to be used as a spare chassis in 1965. It arrived with good timing, as Walt Hansgen had just written off Mecom Racing’s original car, SL70/3, while practicing for the Players 200 at Mosport Park.
SL70/12 was built up using the engine, gearbox and running gear from SL70/3 and made its debut at the Galveston Regional SCCA race in July of 1965, with Walt Hansgen recovered and ready to race.
Mark Donohue partnered with Hansgen for the Road America 500 in September of ’65 and put the car on pole. Sadly that race was not to be with the pair dropping out early.
For the Autoweek Championship later in the year the car was stripped and rebuilt with components upgraded to Mk2 specification. Parnelli Jones was on board handling driving duty for the end of year events.
Jones qualified well at Laguna Seca, Riverside and Las Vegas, but reliability let him down and left the team with a set of DNFs.
In 1966 SL70/12 was rebuilt again and sold to Leroy Melcher, who raced it in the south east divisions of the SCCA and won his class championship that year.
At the end of the year he sold the car to a Dodge dealership in Houston, who sold it on to a Venezuelan by the name of Henry Hoyos. He took the car to South America, racing it there for a year before selling it on.
By 1979 it was in the hands of collector Mac McClendon, who kept it until he sold it to its current owner in 2007. In 2010 the car enjoyed a restoration to its original Mecom livery as raced by Walt Hansgen and Mark Donohue at Road America in ’65.
It’s been raced successfuly in the United States since, and received an engine rebuild in 2014. It’s now in tip-top shape and won the Classic 24 Hours at Daytona last year.
SL70/12 is sold with an incredibly-detailed set of documentation and history, is in race-ready condition and will be welcome at historic race meetings around the world. It looks like an absolute ball, and we hope to see it continuing its recent historic racing success in new hands!
Head to RMD’s website here for more information.
Images via RMD
For Sale: Lola T70 Mk1 is a post from Motorsport Retro, bringing you classic motorsport, cars, motorcycles and gear every day.
The post For Sale: Lola T70 Mk1 appeared first on Motorsport Retro.