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Anthony Colin Bruce Chapman (19 May 1928 – 16 December 1982) was an English design engineer, inventor, and builder in the automotive industry, and founder of the sports car company Lotus Cars.Gérard ('Jabby') Crombac, Colin Chapman: The Man and His Cars (Patrick Stephens, Wellingborough, 1986) Page 15
Chapman founded Lotus in 1952 and initially ran Lotus in his spare time, assisted by a group of enthusiasts. His knowledge of the latest aeronautical engineering techniques would prove vital towards achieving the major automotive technical advances for which he is remembered. Chapman's design philosophy focused on cars with light weight and fine Car handling instead of bulking up on horsepower and , which he famously summarised as "Adding power makes you faster on the straights. Subtracting weight makes you faster everywhere."
Team Lotus won seven Formula One Constructors' titles, six Drivers' Championships, and the Indianapolis 500 in the United States, between 1962 and 1978 under his direction. The production side of Lotus Cars has built tens of thousands of relatively affordable, cutting edge sports cars. Lotus is one of but a handful of English performance car builders still in business after the industrial decline of the 1970s.
Chapman suffered a fatal heart attack in 1982, aged 54.
Chapman briefly joined the Royal Air Force in 1948, being offered a permanent commission but turning this down in favour of a swift return to civilian life. After a couple of false starts, Chapman joined the British Aluminium company, using his civil engineering skills to attempt to sell aluminium as a viable structural material for buildings.
In the 1950s, Chapman progressed through the motor racing formulae, designing and building a series of racing cars, sometimes to the point of maintaining limited production as they were so successful and highly sought after, until he arrived in Formula One. Besides his engineering work, he also piloted a Vanwall F1-car in 1956 but crashed into his teammate Mike Hawthorn during practice for the French Grand Prix at Reims-Gueux, ending his career as a race driver and focusing him on the technical side. Along with John Cooper, he revolutionised the premier motor sport. Their small, lightweight mid-engined vehicles gave away much in terms of power, but superior Car handling meant their competing cars often beat the all-conquering front engined Scuderia Ferrari and Maseratis. Eventually, with driver Jim Clark at the wheel of his race cars, Team Lotus appeared as though they could win whenever they pleased. With Clark driving the Lotus 25, Team Lotus won its first F1 World Championship in 1963. It was Clark, driving a Lotus 38 at the Indianapolis 500 in 1965, who drove the first-ever mid-engined car to victory at the "Brickyard". Clark and Chapman became particularly close and Clark's death in 1968 devastated Chapman, who publicly stated that he had lost his best friend. Among a number of automotive figures who have been Lotus employees over the years were Cosworth founders Mike Costin and Keith Duckworth, and Graham Hill who worked at Lotus as a mechanic as a means of earning drives. In 1966, it was Chapman who persuaded the Ford Motor Company to sponsor Cosworth's development of what would become the Cosworth DFV.
Chapman's next major innovation was popularising monocoque chassis construction within automobile racing, with the revolutionary 1962 Lotus 25 Formula One car. The technique resulted in a body that was both lighter and stronger, and also provided better driver protection in the event of a crash. Although a previously little-used concept in the world of motorsport, the first vehicle to feature such a chassis was the road-going 1922 Lancia Lambda. Lotus had been an early adopter of this technology with the 1958 Lotus Elite. The modified monocoque body of the car was made of fibreglass, making it also one of the first production cars made of composite materials.
When American Formula One driver Dan Gurney first saw the Lotus 25 at the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort, he was so struck by the advanced design that he invited Chapman to the 1962 Indianapolis 500, where Gurney made his Indy début at the wheel of a space-frame rear engined car designed by John Crosthwaite (who had previously worked for Chapman) and built by American hot-rodder Mickey Thompson. Car and Driver magazine August 1962 Hot Rod magazine August 1962 Motor magazine August 1962Indianapolis 500 Mile Race USAC Yearbook 1962. Floyd Clymer Road & Track magazine September 1962 Following the race, Chapman prepared a proposal to Ford Motor Company for an aluminium alloy monocoque Indianapolis car using a 4.2-litre aluminium V-8 Ford passenger car engine. Ford accepted the proposal. The Lotus 29 debuted at Indianapolis in 1963, with Jim Clark finishing second. This design concept fairly quickly replaced what had been for many decades the standard design formula in racing-cars, the tube-frame chassis. Although the material has changed from sheet aluminium to carbon fibre, this remains today the standard technique for building top-level racing cars.
Inspired by Jim Hall, Chapman was among those who helped introduce aerodynamics into Formula One car design. Lotus used the concept of positive aerodynamic downforce, through the addition of wings, at a Tasman Formula race in early 1968, although Scuderia Ferrari and Brabham were the first to use them in a Formula One race at the 1968 Belgian Grand Prix. Early versions, in 1968 and 1969, were mounted or so above the car, to operate in 'clean air' (air that would not otherwise be disturbed by the passage of the car). The underdesigned wings and struts failed regularly, however, compelling the FIA to require the wing mounting hardware to be attached directly to the sprung chassis. Chapman also originated the movement of radiators away from the front of the car to the sides, to decrease frontal area (lowering aerodynamic drag) and centralising weight distribution. These concepts remain features of virtually all high performance racing cars today.
Chapman, working with Tony Rudd and Peter Wright, pioneered the first Formula One use of "ground effect", where a low pressure was created under the car by use of the Venturi effect, generating suction (downforce) which held it securely to the road whilst cornering. Early designs utilized sliding "skirts" which made contact with the ground to keep the area of low pressure isolated.
Chapman next planned a car that generated all of its downforce through ground effect, eliminating the need for wings and the resulting drag that reduces a car's speed. The culmination of his efforts, the Lotus 79, dominated the championship. However, skirts were eventually banned because they were susceptible to damage, for example from driving over a kerb, whereafter downforce would be lost and the car could then become unstable. The FIA made moves to eliminate ground effect in Formula One by raising the minimum ride height of the cars from and requiring flat bottom cars from . Car designers have managed to claw back much of that downforce through other means, aided by extensive wind tunnel testing.
One of his last major technical innovations was a dual-chassis Formula One car, the Lotus 88 in . For ground effect of that era to function most efficiently, the aerodynamic surfaces needed to be precisely located and this led to the chassis being very stiffly sprung. However, this was very punishing to the driver, resulting in driver fatigue. To get around this, Chapman introduced a car with two chassis. One chassis (where the driver would sit) was softly sprung. The other chassis (where the skirts and such were located) was stiffly sprung. Although the car passed scrutineering at a couple of races, other teams protested, and it was never allowed to race. The car was never developed further. The banning of the car led to Chapman becoming depressed and disillusioned with Grand Prix racing.
Chapman, whose father was a successful public house, was also a businessman and innovator in the business end of racing. He introduced major advertising sponsorship into auto racing; beginning the process which transformed Formula One from a pastime of rich gentlemen to a multi-million pound sterling high technology enterprise. He was among the first entrants in Formula One to turn their cars into rolling billboards for non-automotive products, initially with the cigarette brands Gold Leaf and, most famously, John Player Special.
On 19 October 1982, John DeLorean was charged with trafficking cocaine by the US Government, following a videotaped sting operation at a hotel in Los Angeles, in which he was recorded by undercover FBI agents agreeing to bankroll a cocaine smuggling operation. DeLorean Motor Cars subsequently collapsed, during which administrators discovered that £10,000,000 of British taxpayers' money (approximately equivalent to £ million in ) had gone missing.
Lotus Group's 1981 accounts were overdue before Chapman's death, but, when released after his death, disclosed that Lotus had been paid for engineering work by DeLorean via a Switzerland-based Panama company run by a DeLorean distributor, despite Chapman's previous protestations that neither he nor the company had been paid via Panama. Chapman died before the full deceit unravelled, but, at the subsequent trial of Lotus Group accountant Fred Bushell, who had funnelled £5 million to himself in the fraud, the trial judge opined that, had Chapman himself been in the dock, he would have received a sentence "of at least 10 years". The car's engineering concept was later sold by the UK Government appointed administrators to Toyota, who used it to develop the AW11 MR2. The liquidators also recovered around £20 million from Swiss bank accounts controlled by Chapman and John DeLorean.
Personal life
Chapman was married to Hazel Chapman (1927–2021). He had two daughters and one son.
Death
The night before he died, Chapman watched a performance by his long-time friend and Lotus customer Chris Barber, the noted jazz Trombone, and his band. On 16 December 1982, Team Lotus tested the first Formula One car with active suspension, which eventually made its début with the Lotus 99T in . Chapman suffered a fatal heart attack on the same day at his home in Norwich, and died at the age of 54.
Racing record
24 Hours of Le Mans results
Complete Formula One World Championship results
(key)
1956
! Vanwall
! Vanwall
! Vanwall 2.5l Straight-4 ARG MON 500 BEL FRA GBR GER ITA
! NC
! 0
Awards
Further reading
External links
Categories: Alumni Of University College London, 1928 Births, 1982 Deaths, Royal Air Force Airmen, 20th-century Royal Air Force Personnel, Military Personnel From Surrey, English Formula One Drivers, Vanwall Formula One Drivers, Formula One Team Owners, Formula One Team Principals, Formula One Designers, 24 Hours Of Le Mans Drivers, British Automobile Designers, British Founders Of Motor Vehicle Manufacturers, International Motorsports Hall Of Fame Inductees, Lotus Cars, People From Norfolk, Commanders Of The Order Of The British Empire, British Automotive Pioneers, World Sportscar Championship Drivers, People From Hornsey, British Motorsport Designers, Indycar Series Team Owners, English Businesspeople In Manufacturing, 20th-century English Businesspeople, Royal Designers For Industry, 12 Hours Of Sebring Drivers
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