Variations on a lotus theme

Lotus Eleven, blowing minds for 70 years Elise. ...

I have always been a sports-car enthusiast. When I was young, I had subscriptions to Road & Track and Hot Rod, I knew who Carroll Shelby was and I followed the exploits of Phil Hill, John Surtees and

They said Antonio – later ‘Tony’ – Lago was ‘spietato ma con grande fascino’ (which is to say ‘ruthless, but charming’). And they said of his most famous car that it was ‘une veritable oeuvre d’art’.

Apart from dalliances with V8s (and begging an exception for a currently owned Ford twin-turbo V6), I’ve always had a preference for small road cars with simple engines. So why I should be seized by a

The cars at Hampton Court’s concours event combine the weird, the wonderful and the very expensive. And then there’s the people…

Has there ever been a model so enigmatic yet charismatic, so awash with magical beauty and talent as the Alfa Romeo Type 33? On the track, Carlo Chiti’s 1966 design took a couple of years to find its