The Lotus 62 is one of the Lotus entries the open record knows by name, and by little else. That is not nothing: a name in the catalogue is where a car's story starts to be recoverable. Its designer of record is Martin Waide.
How it came about
The Lotus Type 62 race car was a development of the successful Type 47 and intended to race in the Appendix J Group 6 Prototype Class. The car was designed by Martin Waide at Lotus Components and had a space frame chassis, and featured the new Lotus 2.0-litre LV240 (Type 904) DOHC engine (the race program helped develop the Type 907 engine, used to power the Lotus Elite, Esprit, Eclat and Excel). 2 cars were made Chassis numbers #T62/GT/1 & #T62/GT/2 The car had limited competitive success, due mainly to problems with the Vauxhall derived engine block.
The car's most successful race was finishing 3rd position at the Tourist Trophy at Oulton Park in 1969. Race Results Years raced: 1969, 1971-1974 Number of events: 24, Total entries: 30, Finishes: 22, DNF: 7, Wins: 8, Additional class wins: 3, Second place finishes: 3, Third place finishes: 2, Pole positions: 5. When Colin Chapman removed all links to Vauxhall in 1973 the engines were replaced with Lotus 906 engines.
The hardware
it is rated at 220-240 hp. Kerb weight is 1250 lb. Power-to-weight lands near 176 horsepower per tonne, which is quick by any era's standard, the kind of figure a hot hatch or a sports saloon posts. The wheelbase is 91 in. These are manufacturer figures carried by Wikipedia and Wikidata, not road-test measurements.
Family and rivals
Its Lotus stablemates include the Lotus 100T and the Lotus 101.