Lotus 22

At the 1962 London Motor Racing Show, which Lotus traditionally used to promote new racing car models to financially strong privateers, the latest Lotus 22 Formula Junior was presented. It was a further development of Type 20 with a stiffer tubular frame made of thicker metal and other stabilising chassis elements. The car now featured Girling disc brakes all around and now externally mounted. The front suspension was essentially unchanged, while the rear suspension followed the concept on the ’61 Lotus 21 Formula One race car so that the Lotus 22 no longer used the driveshafts as overhead suspension points, but instead added overhead camber links. The car was now on 13-inch wheels front and rear, and the track had been widened again slightly compared to the Type 20. The 1.1-litre Ford Cosworth engine, now with dry sump lubrication and at that time already guaranteed 100 hp, was installed at an angle of 30 degrees to the right in order to make the body more aerodynamic at the rear and to lower the centre of gravity. The Type 22 was also delivered from the factory with four-speed gearboxes based on Renault or VW transmissions. In a first track test of the Lotus 22 at the time, the British “Autosport” magazine praised: “The engine is amazingly flexible, and phenomenally high cornering speeds are possible.”

The car was already extremely successful in the 1962 season, and the Lotus 22 also became the most successful tube-frame Lotus ever in motorsport history. With 18 victories in 25 starts, Lotus works driver Peter Arundell won almost 75 per cent of all the races in which he competed. One of his outstanding achievements was his victory in the Formula Junior race in the supporting programme of the Formula 1 Grand Prix of Monaco. These performances also eventually earned the Briton a Formula One cockpit at Lotus from 1964 onwards, although Colin Chapman was strangely never really impressed by Peter Arundell for any length of time, despite the latter’s great successes in Formula Junior over the years. “Colin Chapman,” Peter Arundell once commented, “was just in love with Jim Clark in those days, I came a long way behind.”

The Type 22’s run of success continued at the start of the 1963 season until the stiffness problems of its successor, the first Formula Junior Lotus with a monocoque, Type 27, were resolved. Very occasionally in those years, the Lotus 22 with larger engines of up to 1.5 litres was also used in one or other Formula 1 race, mainly in non-World Championship races. A total of 77 examples of this design were built and delivered.

This Lotus 22 with Chassis #36 was delivered new to Mr. David Phipps on 16.06.1962 with a 1097 ccm SCA-engine.

Formula Junior class ceased in December 1963, being replaced from 1 Jan 1964 by 1000cc F2 and 1000cc F3. Cosworth engines for this new class were SCA and MAE respectively.

Towards the end of 1963, the 1098cc Junior (Cosworth) engines were making 125BHP.

This is another Lotus 22 being tested in Goodwood. Sit back and enjoy.

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In 1964 the Lotus 22 was sold to his second Owner M. Costin. Mike Costin ran the racing Team Cosworth Engineering Ltd.  at that time. The Team converted the Lotus 22 to Formula 2 specs. We heard that in Cosworth early days, Keith Duckworth referred to a demon downdraft head being developed in late 1963 for use in Mike Costin’s Lotus 22 Junior.  As a driver he signed Brian Hart. Hart was quite successful in monoposto Racing between 1958 -71. He then changed his possession and started to construct racing engines. Starting with formula 2 till Formula one in 1997