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On June 4, 1967, Formula 1 motor racing’s entire world was turnedupside down by what transpired in the Dutch Grand Prix race on theseaside sand-dune racing circuit at Zandvoort. The British Lotus teamhad arrived for that Grand Prix with two brand-spanking new Formula 1cars in their transporter. Star driver Graham Hill had immediately qualifiedhis on pole position for its debut race. On race day he had led beforehis new Cosworth-Ford DFV engine failed, whereupon his team-mateJim Clark had taken over, set fastest lap, and ran away to an utterlydominant victory. The brand-new Lotus-Ford Type 49 had completelyre-written 3-litre Formula 1’s contemporary performance standards.In the Zandvoort pit lane, engineer Tony Rudd, running the rival BRMteam with its super-sophisticated – but heavy and fuel-thirsty – H16-cylinder engined cars studied these sleek, svelte new Lotus-Fords. Hewould later recall his feeling of dismay as he studied the latest conceptfrom Colin Chapman and Maurice Phillippe of Team Lotus, and fromKeith Duckworth and his engine specialists at Cosworth Engineering.Rolls-Royce-trained Tony Rudd admitted: “I realised that, for us, it wasall over”.In effect only nine Lotus-Ford 49s were built (and rebuilt again) undertwelve chassis numbers, from 1967-69. In three seasons the 49 won12 World Championship-qualifying Grand Prix races (a win ratio of35% and comfortably more than any of the seven other Grand Prix carmanufacturers/teams during this period) while the Cosworth DFV V8engine became the first Formula 1 unit ever to score 100 victories, andended up with 155 to its credit.The Lotus Type 49 chassis tailored to that engine comprised in effect aforward fuselage only, providing fuel tanks and cockpit and carrying thefront suspension and nose-mounted cooling radiator. That stressed-skinfuselage ended in a vertical bulkhead behind the driver’s seat section.The engine was then bolted rigidly to the back of this forward ‘tub’, theDFV V8 unit’s cast-aluminium casings and cylinder heads doubling asthe rear-half chassis structure, to which the gearbox and suspensionmembers locating the rear wheels were attached. The entire design wasminimalist, weight-saving to a fault – and it would become the blueprintfor definitive Formula 1 design into the 1970s.Motor Cars | 207