Legendary First-Ever Formula 1 Lotus to Star at the Bonhams|Cars Monaco Sale

MONTE CARLO, MONACO – March 19, 2024 – (Motor Sports NewsWire) – One of the most historically significant of all British Formula 1 Grand Prix cars will be offered at The Bonhams|Cars Monaco Sale, ‘Les Grandes Marques à Monaco’, on 10 May. The 1957-58 Lotus-Climax Type 12 chassis ‘353’, estimated at €290,000 – 390,000, is an historic landmark car in Formula 1 World Championship racing history since it is both the seven-times title-winning British marque’s first-ever Formula 1 contender and also the very car in which future five-times Monaco GP winner and double World Champion Driver Graham Hill made his debut in the revered Monte Carlo race. This pioneering vehicle had earlier been driven by Graham Hill in Silverstone’s 1958 BRDC International Trophy race in his and team Lotus’s Formula 1 debut.

From the left Cliff Allison, Mabel Allison, Bette Hill, Jack Murrell, Graham Hill in ‘353’, Mo Levy (back to the camera) Colin Chapman and Willie Griffiths (Photo by Bernard Cahier, Getty Images).

Beyond its track accomplishments, the Lotus-Climax Type 12 chassis ‘353’ is the star of a memorable story, nick-named the ‘Figgy Pudding Grand Prix’. Renowned racing journalist Denis Jenkinson of ‘Motor Sport’ magazine developed a hankering to try a single-seater racing car on an everyday British public road. Jenks’s ambition was realised on Christmas Day 1957 when Lotus Cars’ founder Colin Chapman lent him ‘353’ and Jenks took it around Hampshire’s deserted roads until a drive shaft broke near Basingstoke where he coasted up a private driveway to get the car out of sight, interrupting an astonished family’s Christmas lunch.

May 3, 1958. BRDC International Trophy, Silverstone – Graham Hill making both his own and Team Lotus’s Formula 1 racing debut in Type 12 chassis ‘353’. GPL photo.

The Lotus legend first launched by ‘353’ extends to no fewer than seven Formula 1 Constructors’ World Championship titles, during which works team cars carried the brand’s stars such as Graham Hill, Jim Clark, Jochen Rindt, Emerson Fittipaldi and Mario Andretti to six Formula 1 Drivers’ World Championship crowns. With additional superstar Lotus drivers Ayrton Senna, Stirling Moss, and Ronnie Peterson, Lotus Formula 1 Grand Prix victories total no fewer than 74 overall.

The Lotus Type 12 design originated from Lotus creator Colin Chapman late in 1956. It was his first Lotus single-seater after the series of…