The Mechanic's Gallon

I came upon the phrase ‘the mechanic’s gallon’ a while ago. Lotus in the 60’s were trying to save weight and make the car as light as possible, inc. putting as much fuel in the car at the start of the race so that it lasted JUST to the end. This generally worked but a few times ran out of fuel with a few laps to go. So unbeknownst to Colin Chapman, the mechanics when fuelling the car would add an extra gallon, just to make sure it was enough, hence the ‘mechanic’s gallon’!

Wednesday, January 1, 2025

Peter Warr of Lotus

Download the audio here, also on the YouTube Channel

Here is an excerpt from the interview we filmed with Peter Warr for my Lotus 72 documentary. These are the pieces where he's not talking about the 72! Peter (or PEW as he was known) was the Team Lotus Team Manager as well as at Walter Wolf Racing. But before that, he worked at Lotus very early on. He also tells us one of the ways that Jim Clark won the Indy 500 in 1965, pay driver Alex Soler-Roig at Clermont-Ferrand in 1970 and Dave Walker in F3 in 1971. The interview was conducted by Steve Holter.