The Lotus 25 was a racing car designed by Colin Chapman for the 1962 Formula one season. It was a revolutionary design and the first fully stressed monocoque chassis to appear in Formula One. In the hands of Jim Clark it took 14 World Championship Grand Prix wins and propelled him to his 1963 World Championship title. Its last World Championship win was at the 1965 French Grand Prix.
Seven cars were built in total, numbered R1 to R7. Four cars - R1, R2, R3 and R5 - were written off (three of them by Trevor Taylor) in accidents between 1962 and 1966. The most successful was R4, which Clark drove to all seven of his World Championship wins in 1963. This car was later crashed by Richard Attwood then rebuilt as a Lotus 33 using a spare monocoque of that type and unofficially known as R13.
The car we have here is R7 which competed in 1963 at the Vi Rand GP in Kyalami qualifying 2nd, with Clark at the wheel the car finished 10th overall. 2 weeks later the car was back on the track at the South African GP qualifying and finishing 8th overall. Chapman then sold R7 and R3 to the Parnell Team in 1964 with R4 following later in the same year. Over the next 2 years Parnell Racing raced the car with Mike Hailwood, Innes Ireland and Chris Amon driving. After changing hands a few more times and different engines being fitted between 1965 and 1967, R7 then found its way to the Donnington Collection and was rebuilt with a Climax V8 engine and ZF gearbox as it first appeared as a team car.
