The Lotus 41 is a Open wheel from Lotus, built from 1966 to 1968, in the decade that gave the world the pony car and the mid-engined supercar. Under the bonnet: 997 cc Ford Cosworth MAE Straight 4. John Joyce drew it.
The story
The Lotus 41 was a Lotus Formula 3 and Formula 2 racing car which ran from 1966 - 1968. John Joyce, Bowin Cars founder, was the Lotus chief designer and was assisted by Dave Baldwin. They started with a clean sheet of paper. The chassis was a welded tubular steel space frame. The racing classes of this period imposed minimum weight requirements, so steel could be used in place of aluminium without a weight penalty.
The most notable feature of the new design was the extensive use of stressed steel panels in the bulkheads, welded steel around the footwell and the instrument panel, a welded sheet of steel surrounding the driver's shoulder, and a double-sided steel cradle surrounding the gearbox. Floors were also welded for additional stiffness. Another clever design feature of the Type 41 was the use of a rear bulkhead as an oil overflow collector. Even the front oil tank had its overflow routed through a labyrinthine path using chassis tubes all the way to the back. The chassis of the Formula 2 Type 41 was also considered as the bases for a possible sports-racing car, using the Type 868 V8 engine of 500 bhp, although nothing eventually came of these plans.
What is underneath
Power comes from 997 cc Ford Cosworth MAE Straight 4. It weighs 420 KG. It shifts through a Hewland Mk VI 4 speed Manual. The wheelbase is 89.9 inches. These are manufacturer figures carried by Wikipedia and Wikidata, not road-test measurements.
Its place in the line
Its family tree is legible: it took over from the Lotus 39; its successor was the Lotus 59. Its contemporaries in the catalogue — the Lamborghini Miura, the Alfa Romeo Spider, the Toyota Corolla — show what else the money bought that year. Nearby in the Lotus catalogue sit the Lotus 100T and the Lotus 101.
What it costs now
MotorJury scores cars on the United States complaint and recall record, and the Lotus 41 has none: too old, too rare, or never sold there. Its value today is a collector's question, decided by provenance and condition rather than by a class average.