Anthony Colin Bruce Chapman ( Eng. Anthony Colin Bruce Chapman ; 1928 - 1982 ) is a British car designer who founded Lotus Cars in 1952, and since 1958 he has set up his own Lotus team in Formula 1 . He introduced many innovative solutions to the design of racing cars.
| Colin Chapman | |
|---|---|
| English Colin chapman | |
 Colin Chapman in 1965 | |
| Date of Birth | |
| Place of Birth | Richmond , Surrey , UK |
| Date of death | |
| Place of death | East Carleton, Norwich , Norfolk , UK |
| A country | |
| Occupation | Auto Designer, Head of Formula 1 Team Lotus |
| Father | Stanley Chapman |
| Mother | Mary Chapman |
| Spouse | Hazel chapman |
| Awards and prizes | |
Biography
Born May 19, 1928 in a suburb of London .
After graduating from university in 1948, he began to design cars. The first machine he created (model Mk1) was the redesigned Austin 7 . Then the name "Lotus" appeared. Officially, Champen never named the reasons for choosing this name; there is a version that it came from the nickname of his friend Hazel, who later became his wife, - "lotus blossom" ( lotus flower ). This car, as the next model, was intended for auto trials .
Chapman organized his own company four years later. By this time, he began to build cars for highway racing. Since 1954, he quit his job and took up exclusively the leadership of a company that produced both racing and road cars (the first was Lotus Mk6). Chapman’s first “formula” was the Mk12 model ( Formula 2 , 1957). Finally, the first car designed for Formula 1 in 1958 was the Lotus Mk16. However, even before that, in 1956, Chapman was developing a Formula 1 car for Vanwall . He brought the slogan “Not a gram of excess weight!” To the Formula 1 race from aviation. At the French Grand Prix of 1956, Chapman was declared at the wheel of the Vanwall as a pilot, in qualification he took 5th place out of 20 cars, but he crashed and could not get to the start. This was his only participation in Formula 1 as a pilot (it is interesting that participation in only one Grand Prix, where he did not go to the start, unites him with Bernie Ecclestone ).
Since 1960, Jim Clark appeared on the team, with whom the first successes of the team in Formula 1 are associated. Chapman later called him his best friend. Clark won the championship for the first time in Lotus in 1963, and the first Constructors' Cup was won the same season. In total, Chapman as a designer and owner of the team won 7 Cups of designers (1963, 1965, 1968, 1970, 1972, 1973, 1978).
His most important technical innovations that changed the face of Formula 1 were as follows:
- the use of monocoque as a structural element in racing cars (the first such car was Lotus Mk25 );
- widespread use of wing ;
- moving radiators from the nose of the car to the sides;
- the use of the ground effect - rarefaction under the bottom of the car, created with the help of "skirts" that covered the space under the bottom (it was later forbidden);
- hydraulic active suspension .
In addition, Chapman for the first time in Formula 1 placed an advertisement on his cars, which was later adopted by all the other teams.
Colin Chapman died of myocardial infarction on December 16, 1982 at the age of 54.
Links
- Colin Chapman (Russian) on wildsoft.motorsport.com
- Biography on Dennis David's website