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1963 Lotus-BMW Type 23B Sports-Racing Two-Seater
Chassis no. 23-S-85

John Blunsden, much respected Associate Editor of 'Motor Racing' magazine in the UK, wrote in 1962 that "The Lotus 23 is the closest thing to the 22 Junior that it is possible to make, that will carry a scaled-down and smoothed out Appendix C (Lotus 19-type) Monte Carlo body...".

This was in fact the last purebred small-capacity sports-racing car to be designed from the ground up by Colin Chapman and his team. Upon its launch at the 1962 London Racing Car Show, the Lotus 23 emerged as the neatest, sleekest sports-racing car ever seen. Although it was intended essentially as an 1100cc class contender, up-to-1000cc engines were another option and early in the 1962 season Lotus developed its own twin-cam headed version of the Ford engine, which emerged as a 1498cc unit. The first of these went into a works Type 23 which Jim Clark drove in the ADAC 1,000Kms World Championsh