Lola Cars finally shuts its doors

[PTRACER]

I guess it's a sad day, one of the most well known British race car manufacturers finally closes its doors after failing to secure a buyer for its £20 million of debt. I wonder whether any of that is left over from the 1997 F1 season debacle?
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/103257

[ReneLotus]

Shame, but it seems Lola's tradition of making decent cars and poor management plans has caught up with them.
On the one hand it is sad to see the Lola name dissappear, but I hope it does not get dragged out of the moth-balls by some half-arsed bunch of investors (such as the failed scheme for the Brabham name to come back to F1 and the Lotus saga).

[Sam]

Didn't they go bust for the first time when the F1 project failed? That's when Eric Broadley, the founder of Lola Cars, left the picture.

Shame to see the race car operation fold. I hope other manufacturers will step up and fill the void in privateer machinery this leaves in LMP style racing.

[theracer120]

It is a sad day for the sport. They've been around for a long time, and have provided us some pretty nice sports cars. First one that comes to mind for me is the Lola T70. Don't forget they also helped in the building of the 1967 F1 Honda which won in that photo finish with John Surtees (in the Honda) and Jack Brabham (in his own car) at Monza.

[caneparo]

They actually built the mid 60's Honda, that it has been nicked the Hondola. It was the close relationship between Eric Broadley and John Surtees that convinced Enzo Ferrari to fire the 1964 world champion, fearing he could disclose classified Ferari project to the british garagisti.
Lola built also the chassis for the Ford GT40 class of cars that dominated the Le Mans 24hours for years.