Lotus T127 launched (Pictures)
12 February 2010 by Keith Collantine
Test driver Fairuz Fauzy shook down the Lotus T127 at Silverstone
Lotus has officially revealed the car it will return to F1 with in 2010 at a launch ceremony in London.
See below for pictures of the Lotus T127 – the first Lotus since 1994.
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- Lotus-Cosworth T127
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- Lotus-Cosworth T127
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- Lotus-Cosworth T127
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- Lotus-Cosworth T127
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- Lotus-Cosworth T127
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- Lotus-Cosworth T127
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- Fairuz Fauzy, Lotus-Cosworth T127 shakedown
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- Fairuz Fauzy, Lotus-Cosworth T127 shakedown
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- Fairuz Fauzy, Lotus-Cosworth T127 shakedown
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- Lotus-Cosworth T127 shakedown
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- Lotus-Cosworth T127 shakedown
Image (C) Lotus F1
beautiful car.. nice one!!
the nose wing is very similar to last years toyota but the wing is very complex i like the car but the color scheme but its obvious it will be 20th something
i think so too
Those flat top sidepods look really ugly to me. Makes it look like a huge bathtub. Apart from the front wing which is a combination of various other car’s front wings the entire car looks remarkably basic.
Having said that, I do like the colours on it, especially the yellow wheels.
“Those flat top sidepods look really ugly to me.”
Wow, you must be very new to F1.
the sidepods are alot flatter than other recent F1 cars.
Doh.
To be fair, no matter how good they used to look, (subjective) those sidpods look hella ugly to me.
but wow, they seem to have gone for the exact reverse phillosophy that Virgin went for, complicated front wing, basic everything else.
An me oh my, FINALLY, launch photos that show us the money shot! Is it me or have they got a BGP01 diffuser on the back of their car?
Simply from taking a look at that car I get the feeling Virgin has got one over them, still they had a lot less time on that car, an it looks better than USF1 an Campos so far doesn;t it?
Yeah, I don’t like the flat sidepods either. A lot of the aesthetic changes to F1 cars in recent years have made them uglier, but the move towards curved sidepods was a big improvement
Gorgeous! utterly gorgeous! so true to the old livery!
I disagree. For a true ‘67 style livery the yellow stripe should spread at the tip of the nose and wrap around, Red Bull style. Hope it looks better on TV under the Bahrain sunshine.
Don’t get me wrong, its great to see British Racing Green back on the grid, but I hoped for a much nicer looking car than this.
That said, I have a lot of faith in Gascoyne and I hope the team does well.
With a new twist of course…. they couldnt really to that because it would look too similar to the red bull at a distance… nothing worse than mixing up two cars… like Midland & McLaren
Think of the ‘05 Toyota which looked a lot like the ‘04 Toyota… which was rubbish and looked like a 2003 Toyota. In ‘05 with no tyre changes everyone else had different looking cars – but yet Toyota did very well. And who oversaw that car?
Our man Gazza. I don’t for one minute think this will be a winner out of the box but it will not embarass itself.
That was a later iteration of the livery, on the groundbreaking Lotus 25 the stripe was straight to the nose.
http://i31.tinypic.com/106iik0.jpg
anyone notice the new Lotus logo? it’s different from the old one.
toyota nose, last years force india’s front wing
first car since 2010?
Lotus only in name!
In a sense you could say that about Ferrari and McLaren, too, since their founders aren’t there anymore. Lotus give credit where credit is due on their website – not much more they can do.
In a sense I’m not me anymore because most of my cells are only a few days old.
The relationship between this rebooted ‘Lotus’ and Colin Chapman’s team could arguably be analogous to someone using another person’s identity and reputation after their death.
But Ferrari and McLaren can still be traced back to their founders, whereas this Lotus team can be tracked back to Malaysia last year.
No to be honest Matt. Mclaren and Ferrari have been Mclaren and Ferrari since they began, this is called Team Lotus if im not mistaken, which isnt the real Lotus brand. If they were real Lotus they wouldnt distance themselves from the road car firm. I wish they had made this team from the lotus road cars company like jaguar did a few years ago, but they just havent won me over, its like a really good chinese gucci bag, no matter how good or real it looks, even if people believe that its real…… you’ll always no its chinese.
i meant to be honest i agree with matt.
I’m not massivley patriotic, an I live in London etc so I really hope this doen’t come out wrong but something rubs me the wrong way that the car is going to be Malaysian flaged.
Nothing against Malaysian but surley they could have called it Proton. I feel i’m on thin ice here, an i’ll probably change my name if the real lotus buys into the company, i’ll be happy with that as a rubber stamp. But Lotus is the eponymous British racing team. Racing Green, Colin Chapman, Graham Hill and Jim Clark. I think Malaysian involvement in F1 is great but I do feel they could have used a brand that wasn’t so close to our hearts.
Team Lotus is the original brand, this team is Lotus Racing or something.
I think!
Ford purchased Stewart GP and rebranded it Jaguar, with no technical input from Jaguar cars, just marketing support.
But Proton own Lotus Cars….. If you want the Lotus to be badged Proton, why not badge the Ferrari’s, Fiat !
Two words: Jimmy Clark. I’m happy!
Maciek- I have no problem with the team taking the name Lotus, but that comparison is daft.
McLaren and Ferrari didn’t vanish from F1 and return 15 years later in a completely different factory with a new set of employees and brand themselves as ‘1team Malaysia’
To be honnest I’d be fairly annoyed if some unrelated British team bought the name and decided they where going to be Team Lotus.
Team Lotus was glorious, but now it’s a glorious memory, If the car company that came from Lotus decided it wanted to run a team again, it would be fine for it to use the name, but not a bunch of other guys.
To be clear I do quite like Fernandes and Gascyone an the way they’ve gone about running things an I don’t feel as vehmentley opposed to the idea as I did, still feel like in the original post that they’re (an this is the first an last time I will ever say this) ransacking a British insitution for personal gain.
Wow, I really got everybody going here. I was, of course, exaggerating to make a point. What I meant was that given the link to “Classic Lotus” they put on their website, they’re obviously not just taking on the name without acknowledging the history behind it.
F1 fan, quick note in case you weren’t aware Ford owned Jaguar then and so it would be comparable to the rumoured VW buyout of Campos and calling it Lamborghini, they just used a more racy name than Ford for the team name. So i’m not quite sure what you are getting at here.
Thank you! People seem to be forgetting this.
T127? What’s the story behind that?
the only thing i can think of is lotus cars where named mk1 to the lotus 121. there are 5 others with names puts it at 127…if you forget the m250
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_Cars
That is a good question.
The last Lotus Type anybody saw was the Lotus Type 123 (the Federal Exige), but it isn’t entirely implausible that Lotus Type numbers are up to 127.
Why they haven’t just called it the Type 127 I’m not sure, possibly to distance themselves slightly from both Team Lotus and Lotus Cars neither of who they have any actual relation to.
But the halfway house seems strange…well it’s just like the team I guess. It’s kind of a Lotus, and it kind of has a type number.
Type 124 is the Evora GT4 race car.
It’s not unusual for Lotus to have type numbers assigned that don’t get revealed.
Oh… I was thinking of Tony-127 at first thought, since Tony Fernandes is the team principal… LOL, now I was proven wrong
lol he wouldn’t be that egotistical….would he?!
what i mentioned previously falls apart as it forgets current cars…umm…
Well, Ross Brawn did name an entire team after himself so a car model wouldn’t be any where near as egotistical would it?
As did Enzo Ferrari, Bruce McLaren, Frank Williams, Jack Brabham, Chris Amon and many others!
That is true DanThorn, Enzo was even more Egotistical as he named an entire company after himself
It’s probably the only car on the grid that will look good
with the green option tires. Does look very simple in design but maybe that will work for them!
Actually I think the Force India looks good with the ‘eco’ green striped tyres too.
I’ve never really noticed the green stripes as a problem, bit hypocritical but meh.
All this furore about the asthetic calamity that is two green stripes on a tyre, well I missed that meeting.
The Mercedes works well with the green striped tyres too, as it’s almost the same shade as the green Petronas flashes.
I don’t like the green, I think its a bit dull. I also don’t like how from the front it looks like it says “Nazi Group”.
A big disappointment.
Lol!!
Lmfao!!
Lol, kinda reminds me of when they do the slogans on the door thing on Top Gear.
Yeah I thought that too Tommy! Whoever came up with the name NAZA GROUP really didn’t think it through
NAZA isn’t a name that was came up with…
it’s the founder’s name.. Tan Sri NAZArudin (TanSri is a Malaysian is an honorary thing, like Sir is for Brit…) and group bcuz the array of automotive related biznez things which include distribution of their own badge of cars, ducati , Ferrari and Maserati (the largest ever showroom and distributor outside of Italy!)
So, none whatsoever to do with Nazis..
Glad Im not the only one who noticed that…
I thought it was supposed to be unveiled in some event center in London. But this just looks like a white wall to me. Something I should know about London?
These are just studio pics, no hall or such. It was supposed to be at the Royal Horticultural Hall but whatever happened to that!
500+ guests, world media and a good start to an exciting season.
they did in London tonight, the photos are from the press pack shots and not from the event
The car is beautiful! With Renault and Lotus, F1 has officially gone retro.
The level of development of the front wing should be indicative of the funding they have.
WOW. Beautiful. now all we need is a full orange car and a full black car and it’ll be like 2001 all over again
. It is beautiful although does look rather square…?
I did a google on T126 to see what the previous car looked like. I found a resistence, a radio transmitter, a weddingdress or a babycarrier.
To me it looks good. Simple but good. No shark-fin. We’ll see next week if they are better built then the Virgin.
Front wing is practically identical to the Force India’s. Odd, especially considering all the legal issues surrounding them using the same aero companies.
I thought it looked a little familiar
http://images.gpupdate.net/large/134154.jpg
Its a different colour so it has to be a different wing.
Does that company still work for Force India, because look at them one after another and they are exactly the same, to a tee.
Still if that is the same company then well just compare the launch pictures. Simular routes have undoubtably been taken.
http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/lotus_t127-1.jpg
http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/forceindia_vjm03.jpg
I take my virgin comment back, THIS is the best looking livery on the grid now!
Mr Branson put on that air hostess uniform!
Design is simple (and the front section really borders on ugly, shape-wise), but we can’t expect anything else from a new contender. Livery looks good from the front, but kinda dinky from the side.
its naza group not nazi group lol…their new website is up and running too.. go and check it out
Yeah but with the A partially obscured it definitely looks like Nazi Group from the front.
It seems pretty much the same as from the Autosport spy photos which makes sense.
The car looks okay considering it is a new team, though they are supposed to have quite a few former Toyota personal so that might explain why the front nose support struts remind me of the 2009 Toyota. The top of the side pods look very flat especially considering what we have become used to recently.
Unless that isn’t their final diffuser they seem to be the only team to actually show photos of the back end like that, all the other teams have been covering their diffusers up.
I like the classic Lotus green & yellow livery especially the yellow wheels, but I feel it could be improved with a few tweaks here and there although I am not sure what changes I would make, but I would move the car number from in front of the rear wheels to the side of the rear wing unless they are planning to keep that area free for sponsors they may attract in the future
My dreams have come true – It looks gorgeous, love the BRG, it looks so much better with a good camera angle. Now lets go and win a rain soaked Malaysian GP!
just for the record…
the Malaysian organizers had warn them countless times about the risk of rain,
But leave it to Bernie to show the world of his “genius” idea to go with the thing that almost made teams almost leaving…
Good Thing he is gone now!