VIN: the ex-Jochen Rindt Lotus Type 36 Elan S4 FHC chassis 700102003F
/ Ben Tyer
HISTORY OF CHASSIS 700102003F
Having shown much promise, initially in Touring Cars and then Formula Junior, Jochen Rindt was soon able to turn professional. The 1965 season saw Rindt drive for Cooper in F1 and win Le Mans driving a NART-entered Ferrari 250 LM for Luigi Chinetti.
In 1966, a remarkable string of drives saw Rindt finish third in the F1 World Driver’s Championship with the largely un-competitive Maserati-powered Cooper T81. That season he also drove works machinery for Alfa Romeo and Porsche in the Touring and Sports categories respectively.
After an F1 campaign blighted by poor reliability in 1967, Rindt switched to Brabham for ‘68. Following the untimely death of Jim Clark that April, Colin Chapman went on to sign Rindt for the 1969 season as Clark’s heir apparent.
Driving the Gold Leaf-backed Lotus 49B, Rindt took his first F1 win at the 1969 United States Grand Prix en route to fourth in that year’s Drivers’ standings, a year in which he comfortably out-scored his two-time champion team-mate, Graham Hill.
For 1970, Rindt became Lotus’s number one driver and although the season got off to a poor start, a sequence of five wins from six races between rounds three and eight saw Rindt establish a massive points advantage.
Immediately after his victory at round eight, the German Grand Prix, Lotus boss Colin Chapman presented Rindt with a brand new Elan S4 FHC out on the Hockenheim circuit: chassis 700102003F.
Configured in rarely seen French Blue and registered NVG 853H, it was to be Rindt’s last company car as, at round ten of the 1970 championship, the Austrian ace would lose his life during practice for the Italian Grand Prix.
Remarkably, as a consequence of his stellar form that year, Rindt still went on to win the 1970 F1 Drivers’ Championship despite not contesting the last four races.
In February 2023, chassis 700102003F was put up for auction with a little over 80,000km on the odometer having resided in an important Elan collection for many years.
Text copyright: Supercar Nostalgia
Photo copyright: unattributed
