Lotus does not build many cars like the Lotus 21: a Open wheel with Coventry Climax FPF, built from 1961 in the decade that gave the world the pony car and the mid-engined supercar.
How it came about
The Lotus 21 was a Formula One racing car designed by Colin Chapman. It was a mid-engined design using a tubular spaceframe structure skinned with fibreglass panels, of a more advanced build than seen in the Lotus 18. Powered by the 1.5-litre Coventry Climax FPF 4-cylinder engine, it used disc brakes all round.
Used by the works Lotus team and the privateer Rob Walker Racing Team in 1961, the 21 was the first works Lotus to win a Formula One Grand Prix, in the hands of Innes Ireland at the 1961 United States Grand Prix. (Previous victories were taken by Rob Walker's team). Customer teams continued to use it up to 1965. It was soon rendered obsolete by the Lotus 24 and the monocoque Lotus 25 introduced for the 1962 Formula One season.
The hardware
Under the skin sits Coventry Climax FPF. The gearbox is a ZF 5DS10. These are manufacturer figures carried by Wikipedia and Wikidata, not road-test measurements.
Family and rivals
Where it sits in Lotus's history is not in doubt: the Lotus 18 came before it; the Lotus 24 / Lotus 25 followed it. On a showroom list of its day it stood against the Jaguar E-Type, the Volvo P1800, the Alfa Romeo Giulia. Its Lotus stablemates include the Lotus 100T and the Lotus 101.
The money
There is no federal ownership record for the Lotus 21 — it predates the complaint database or was never sold in the United States — so MotorJury publishes no running-cost figure for it. For a car of this age the price is set by the collector market and the condition of the individual example, not by a formula.