Jim Clark’s race-winning Lotus Cortina goes up for sale

Jim Clark might be best remembered as a double Formula 1 world champion but, as was typical during his era, he could turn his hand to any racing discipline – be that rallying, endurance, NASCAR or Formula 2.

But outside all of those, he was renowned for his skill as a saloon racer – and examples of the Lotus Cortina with which he became synonymous don’t come any better than this.

It’s the actual car in which he achieved three outright victories and eight class wins out of eight races to secure the 1964 British Saloon Car Championship alongside team-mate Jackie Stewart.

Fairly described by Fiskens in London as “unquestionably the most famous works Lotus Cortina”, in Clark’s supernaturally capable hands BJH 417B regularly showed a clean pair of heels to ostensibly far mightier machinery at circuits throughout the UK, often thrilling the crowds as it took corners on three wheels.

In this very car, Clark trounced other greats such as Dan Gurney, Jack Brabham and Jack Sears to create a legend around the partnership between Ford and Colin Chapman’s Lotus following the decision to build 1000 homologation cars with Cosworth-tuned twin-cam engines, close-ratio gearboxes and improved suspension.

The modifications transformed the already quick Mark 1 Lotus Cortina, causing a halo effect around the entire range of standard road cars and enhancing Ford’s sales

Originally registered to Lotus Cars, BJH 417B went to a private owner at the end of the ’64 season and subsequently ended up in the collections first of TWR founder Tom Walkinshaw and then two further racing drivers – the first being Dario Franchitti.

Back in 2019, Motor Sport’s Ed Foster accompanied Franchitti in the car, filming him as he delivered it for long-term loan to the Jim Clark Motorsport Museum in Duns, Scotland, of which Franchitti is a patron and where he allowed the car to remain until 2021.

Now presented in ‘outstanding’ condition, it wears its correct and instantly recognisable Lotus team livery of Ermine White with a Sherwood Green side flash and yellow pinstripes. Clark fans will also spot the black strip on the bonnet that marks-out BJH as being ‘his’ 1964 season car.

It will be sold with a vast history file charting everything from its championship-winning outings to its more recent appearances in parades at Goodwood.

The superbly executed restoration by Merseyside Lotus expert and Classic Team Lotus driver Andy Middlehurst has left the car looking just as it would have done when Clark drove it, with the leather of its steering wheel beautifully patinated from vigorous use and the same bucket seat that Clark, Stewart and Franchitti have all sat in.

As is the policy at Fiskens, the asking price is available only ‘on application’ from seriously interested parties. But we can safely assume that it will be several multiples of the £69,440 paid for a beautifully restored Lotus Cortina road car at a Historics auction last April.

After all, this Jim Clark-raced car really is “unquestionably the most famous works Lotus Cortina”. In the world..

1964 Lotus Cortina

On offer with Fiskens, London, £POA. fiskens.com

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