This remarkable collection of original Lola race car moulds was bought directly from Lola founder Eric Broadley in 1990. The moulds were then used to make fiberglass panels for various Lola cars by T.W. Mouldings, a well-known British fiberglass specialist.
Lola is one of the truly great British race car design and manufacturing companies. They were always very much a David in a world of Goliath motorsport companies, and they competed with great success in sports car racing, Formula 1, CART, Champ Car, and more.
Lola collectors will be paying very close attention to this auction, the sheer quantity of rare Lola moulds and body panels is remarkable.
It would be Eric Broadley’s Lola Mk6 that would form the foundation that would be evolved into the Ford GT40 in the mid-1960s, a car that would go on to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans four times on the trot from 1966 through to 1969.
Lola Cars: A History Speedrun
Lola Cars was established in 1958 by Eric Broadley in Bromley, Kent – a town in South East Greater London. Much like his long-time rival, Colin Chapman of Lotus, Broadley started out building his own race cars by hand for club-level competition.
He showed an innate engineering ability and was quickly developing cars that were remarkably fast. Enquiries from other race drivers began to pour in, and realizing there was serious demand, he made it his life’s work.
In less than a single decade, Broadley and cars developed at Lola were beating the very best in the world. In racing circles Lola would become a household name on both sides of the Atlantic and further afield, winning races in distant locales like Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa.
Above Video: This episode of Jay Leno’s Garage covers the Lola Mk6, it also discusses the history of Lola and the importance of the Mk6 as the basis of the later Ford GT40.
Lola would become a tour de force in international motorsport, racing at Le Mans and in Can Am, in Formula 1, CART, Formula 2, Formula 3, Formula 5000, Champ Car, and even in the world of rally. Sadly, as often happens in the racing world, Lola would eventually cease operating and 2012 would be their final year in business.
The story doesn’t quite end there however. The company’s assets and intellectual property were bought by Till Bechtolsheimer in 2021, and he’s made it clear that he wants to bring Lola back to the grid by 2024 to 2025.
The Lola Race Car Moulds Shown Here
As noted in the introduction, the extensive collection of moulds and finished fiberglass body panels you see here were all bought direct from Lola founder Eric Broadley in 1990. They’re now being offered for public sale as individual lots – moulds for specific Lola cars have been grouped together and are being sold in lots.
In the foreground here you can see some front nose sections, around the sides of the image you can see stacks of fiberglass moulds.
Getting correct fiberglass panels for vintage race cars can be a major challenge, and having the ability to produce exact factory-specification body parts directly from the original factory moulds is going to be appealing to many.
If you’d like to scroll through the full assortment of moulds and body panels being offered for sale or register to bid you can visit the listing here. The auction is due to take place on the 7th of February and it’s being held by W&H Peacock Auctioneers & Valuers out of the United Kingdom.
Images courtesy of W&H Peacock Auctioneers & Valuers
Articles that Ben has written have been covered on CNN, Popular Mechanics, Smithsonian Magazine, Road & Track Magazine, the official Pinterest blog, the official eBay Motors blog, BuzzFeed, Autoweek Magazine, Wired Magazine, Autoblog, Gear Patrol, Jalopnik, The Verge, and many more.
Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with well over a million monthly readers from around the world and many hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.
