1968 Lotus 56 Turbine Car

[Steve Holmes]

Can anyone tell me why its front wheels and tyres were yellow?

[Shoreboy57]

For the race, to differentiate it from the other cars, the team painted the sides of the nose yellow and the numbers became black-on-white (the other team cars were white-on-black)-the team even painted the sidewalls of the front tires yellow-

[Steve Holmes]

Thanks for that. So it was purely to help the team differentiate the car? Makes sense really. Do you know if the wheel/tyre on the outer side was also yellow?

[Michael Clark]

That is the great Joe Leonard in #60 - there were three of these wedges in the race. Graham Hill sat in the middle of the front row with Leonard on the outside while Art Pollard was in the middle of row 4.

Either Leonard or Pollard was there because Mike Spence had been killed in one, and I think he was there because Jim Clark had been killed the month before.

None of the 'flying doorstops' were there at the end. I have to wonder if the yellow marking were a practice or qualifying thing only because the race photos I have found, albeit mostly b&w, don't indicate coloured tyres (sorry - tires) etc.

Fun fact - Eagles finished 1-2-4 - and each had a different engine configuration...

[khyndart in CA]

I read somewhere that the STP nose colouring was to help the time keepers, pit crews and the race announcers.
(Michael, the (tires/tyres) do seem to be the normal (color/colour) when the race started.)




(Ken H)