For our current project we are undertaking, we are repairing and restoring the ex Tony Shaw/Graham Baker/Dave Mitchell/Bill McCabe Lotus 20 that was raced predominantly in the South Island. Tony Shaw imported the car to NZ through Hank Rossiter via John Sprinzel. Tony registered it as a "Lotus Car" in Oct 65 and has been continually licensed since then, making tracing the NZ history relatively easy. Tracing it back to Europe however has been a problem, with the only glimmer of hope being through Hank Rossiter who knows the car only had one owner from factory and has the name written somewhere. I have written to Hank with a SSAE in the hopes to hear back but to no avail. In addition to the history we are trying to trace photos or memories of the car, as to help us determine the livery for the car to restore it to a particular period and would be thrilled if any of you could help. What we have so far is:
Tony Shaw- Mid Light Pastel Blue to Green with Yellow Nose Band
Graham Baker- Green with Yellow Band to Red with Yellow Stripe?
Dave Mitchell- Red with White stripe?
Bill McCabe- Purple with white stripe.
Again these are just word of mouth except McCabe's as we have his body that was crashed at Teretonga in 1970/1 and subsequently never raced again.
At some stage in NZ the car has been upgraded to have a 22 top link rear suspension set up, but the work was very professional. Will load photo's. Maybe someone on here did the work?! I have one black and white photo of it courtesy of David McKinney taken at Wigram in 1966 but would love to see more, I realise that this car was never a major frontrunner, but the fact that this car is so original due to its short active racing life and has a detailed NZ history is awesome. We have the original body but somewhere along the line someone has purchased a lotus 22 body for it. (orange body in photo) Along with this the car has a lotus 22 oil tank and a 22 seat. Strange parts to add in I would have thought. During Tony Shaw's ownership, a 1.5L motor was installed, then Graham Baker had a dry sumped 1.5L. I would love to hear about any memories or see photos of this car.
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