1963 Lola Mk6 GT - Jay Leno's Garage

driver. I want this door, oh, that's right, this is the passenger door that's okay again, yeah, yeah, and of course the famous Ford GT cut your Lola Jeep. I know I love you too. I mean, look how wide it opens. Wow, it's fine and there seems to be plenty of leg room. It's not there because there's obviously no engine in the front right and of course the bright seats, which is an interesting choice of interior color, this kind of aquamarine. Yes, we can open, let's open the back and there is the famous Ford 260. in the 221 of course, and at that time it went to the 289, see if this had been in use, this 260 was not scrapped, it would have been put on a 289then in the seventies the 302 would have died there and it would all be, you know, a change to see it as it originally was with the gold valve covers, boy, that's a bigger gearbox than Columbia, right?

Yes, it is and it is. It's strange, it's not more robust considering how big you know, it's a small thing. I understand why it breaks, but it's interesting in the heads and a single four cylinder. There is no need to overcarbure. I see this car is exactly as it was at the London races. car show in January '63 Wow, later on, obviously, they raced it, they put Weber on it, yeah, but that's how it was shown at the London racing car show, let's go around the back, show me. I always love these taillights. I don't know why, maybe I know if it goes back to Jim Clark and the Cortina.

You know the Lotus genius, but I always thought they were very sexy taillights. You look great in this and of course the famous Lola, a badge and a license plate there. I'm surprised there's no vent here to get the air out, yeah I think you'll find out later that when they actually ran with it they drilled some holes in there, but again, this is the original rear plexiglass and that's the original. forget it, yes, yes. Wow, that's a pit, this is what it was like in 1964. I mean, how did you actually find it? Was it included in Road & Track magazine?

An old race car for sale or how you came to acquire it. Actually, he and 65 Shelby. He wanted me to race the Daytona coupes and because our goal was to win the world championship because Ferrari at the last minute and '64 did something fast, so I remember it was you and Bondurant that it wasn't you that actually went later. In this spring, everything is fine, but anyway I said, "Well, I actually want to be an eek besides driving and he says, well, that's what I had in mind and what he really had in mind was to get a driver at the mechanic, you know, for him.” Same prices as a mechanic, of course, so you know she does, yeah, anyway.

In short, you know, I prepared my Daytona Coupe for Daytona and Sebring and then we went to Europe and my job as a mechanic was actually to be a mechanic. chassis 103 and 104 Ford GT cars and we were actually working in Slough for the event where Ford previewed the vehicles. It was located where they actually built the Ford GTS, but they had a warehouse, a long warehouse that was actually cutting two on one side. Lola Cars and the other side was where we were working on the Ford GTS and consequently I met the general manager there, Rob Rush Brook, and he was a very friendly man and they would lend us pop rivets or whatever we needed.

He had lent it to us one day I was in the store and I saw on the corner, you know, I saw a car with a cover and I thought, man, it looks like the Lola GT, I couldn't be sure, so I asked. Rob, I say, could I see it the way the GT is and he says yes, he says, so I looked at it and man, I spent almost an hour there probably looking at it and I came back and said, Rob, do you think Eric would do it? ? consider selling that car and Rob says well if he ever would, now he says I need the space because he was only selling the T 70's.

I'm crazy and we could use the money. Make me an offer and that's when I came back and Almost every penny I could borrow or steal and I got $3,000, you had to negotiate from the bottom from 5 or with you right? Basically, you know what he said, okay, Eric is going to call because he was in Indy. I was arriving in Indianapolis and then he says that Eric is going to call tonight and I'll give you an answer in the morning, of course, I didn't sleep all night and I was very early and no, Rob says, well, Allan, he says. you buy a current condition or a condition and I thought what could that be, he says that Eric would like to get it out of here before he returned from the United States because he really wanted to keep that car in good shape and make a road car. out of this, so Wow, I said no problem Wow, very exciting Wow, well, let's get to the business end here, let's show the driver's compartment here, open it up right here, okay, that looks very similar to the first wheel from Miura: looks like one of those kind of grant flyers we bought from JC Whitley or something, now feel how wide it is man, that thing is how you like what's how you like to be going 180 down the Mulsanne straight holding to that little y It's funny to see a Ford with a straight European chainring from top to bottom.

You know, I'm so used to the very sexy Ford, the bent shifter with the lock to me, that always was, yeah, it looks like a deal when you're a kid, yeah, you know, that always looks like something from a Volkswagen, just sticking out, move it this way, this way, that's pretty amazing, it's kind of interesting because generally speaking, Eric, you know he beat him, he actually made a tram out of it. same chassis on the right and so instead of having the shift linkage on the same side there are the linkages in the transaxle like on a Ford GT on the right, he put it in the middle so he can turn right or to the left, but to do that I'll notice there are wires coming back here, oh, they came back this way, this way, yeah, and that's why David Hobbs doesn't like to talk about it, but he got crashed by LeMond in the middle of the night due to cable movement. he wasn't the best in the world and that's why he missed it he missed a turn, so let's open this from this side again.

I just want to point out a few things under the engine bay, so this is ours. It's surprising how clean and tidy it is. Compared to modern cars, this is your overflow radiator. You realize that everything is made by hand. I see you look at the welder, yeah, very clean and look at the old school so

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id and just a Ford vent cover and this looks like the JC Whitney again. 990 right, right, yeah, I mean, it's fascinating, you notice there are no respirators, they're hard to get now because in the early sixties they didn't have the vent cover, okay, that's a respirator back here, it's so funny you think that being a race car they would have done that, they probably would have changed that and yeah, yeah, yeah, it's amazing to see it exactly as it is.

Can we turn it on and see what it absolutely sounds like? Say when everything is good, ready, sure, let's turn it on. Why does it sound so much bigger? that a 2:16, you know, it's so funny, you get so used to these modern high-revving engines, you know, it almost sounds like a truck engine, yeah, all kinds of torque and to think that it only has 260 cubic inches, which It's quite small, buy American Standard. Well, what is the capacity of the tank? It will hold 35 gallons. Oh, how big, yes, yes, and wow, this is literally a bomb, right?

I mean, there is no protection for the driver. It is fiberglass. You have 35 gallons of gasoline right under your feet. actually right here in the tank Oh, in the monocot on both sides, yeah, yeah, so you've got 35 gallons again. I mean, yeah, this was when racing was, this is when they were losing guys at a rate of one a week, almost well, yeah, up in the day, I mean, racing is still obviously dangerous, but it's a lot safer. compared to, I mean, there were no seat belts, no, nothing, yeah, no, we had seat belts, oh, you ran down seat 65, okay, because you see the guys with the cigars on the show, TRUE? yeah, pretty crazy, oh I like it, this is here like a plenum chamber, I see, there's a knock in a duct up here, yeah, yeah, I see and the air comes in here, yeah, okay, and actually this was Designed for the standard air filter on a toy 260 and 280.

High performance nine. I only put this in temporarily due to the fact that when they built the engine they put an extra spacer in there and therefore it wouldn't fit, so oh god, I have the correct original one for the air filter, you know? I remember seeing this car on the cover of I think it was a sports car graphic. I wonder if modern car magazine covers affect kids the same way they did when we were young, because we were kids, we only saw our car like that in the car magazine. It wasn't on TV, it wasn't in Life magazine, it wasn't, so you waited every month, you know, so when I was looking through your scrapbook, I have that number.

I remember buying it, yeah you know, it's fun and with modern things modern magazine I can look right away and say they bought this six months ago, yeah, but the ones from the 50's and 60's I remember like it was yesterday, it's funny how it is , yeah well it fits beautifully and also the fact I noticed that the knockoffs don't have any retaining pins to keep it from coming apart, yeah yeah that's what we didn't do in the past yeah yeah well , this is a racing car, plus it's raining and we can't stand it. but at some point you will be driving this car somewhere oh absolutely yes yes well it's really exciting and I think at fifty you had the only two payments left that's amazing but Alan thank you so much for preserving this piece of history. inland to see exactly what it was like, I mean, it really is, if you're not a motivated archaeologist, this is like the pyramids, you know, I mean, it's like seeing like you, just the little things that don't get a break, no This, no, that of a shiny interior and just seeing a racing car maintained exactly as it was in the past is really a pleasure because things changed so quickly and you just forget about it and you end up with a modern version of something old and not It's neither fish nor bird, you know? what I mean is right, whereas this way this is exactly what it was in 1964 and it's really the midpoint of the race car that you think racing started in, you know, nineteen seven 1910 mm-hmm and This car is exactly halfway there.

As far as we are now, this was the peak of technology in the past and it seems so primitive now compared to modern cars, but in some ways it's sexier, more fun and more desirable, yeah, you know, this looks like a car, This is when you cum. The cars were almost street cars, you know, the last car, I think you could drive to Lamar and win, was probably the McLaren F1, yeah, whereas this is a car that you could literally almost drive to the race track mm-hmm , make some modifications and drive home, you know this is when the car you bought on Monday was really similar to the car you saw win, yes it's different now too, but this is just the golden era and thank you so much Alan for booking this, thanks really, you have a website, can people go? and look at this, yes, in fact, if you're on Facebook, you can search for Lola GT space mk6, okay, there's a lot of photos there and well, thank you so much for bringing them here, what a delight, what an exciting car, just incredible. you guys next week