Art.Nr. 23898"
So now the blue Lola is here, too—the winning car from the 1969 Daytona 24-Hour Race. The victory by the Penske team, with Mark Donohue and Chuck Parsons at the wheel, remained Lola’s greatest and only major international success, as the new Porsche 917s and Ferrari 512s soon began to outshine them. Lolas continued to be used in races by private teams for a long time, not least because of their relatively low price.
Even on the blue body—which is very detailed and cleanly printed—the threaded inserts in the spindles are slightly recessed (3 out of 4), so here as well: Be careful when tightening the screws. The blue of the body with the subtle sponsor decals looks very authentic, and the fine gold checkered stripes and Sunoco lettering are precisely and cleanly executed. The visible part of the rims is true to the original, but personally, I find the chrome finish—especially on this vehicle—a bit too stark in contrast to the rich, deep blue of the body… the originals were likely made of polished light metal. The headlights are, as usual, very bright. At the rear, you can really only see the taillights clearly when braking.
The front axle turns freely and is straight. The rear axle has the proper play relative to the transmission and also shows no significant imbalances.
Now for the tires, which I took a much closer look at this time. On the rear axle, the tires rotate longitudinally on the rims, so they would need to be secured for driving; otherwise, the motor won’t be able to transfer power to the track. This isn’t the case with the front axle, though it wouldn’t be nearly as bad there as it is in the rear. Since there’s very little tread on the tires due to the rim’s design, you have to be careful when sanding. You can still remove the rear tires without any trouble, but they’re already noticeably stiffer and less flexible than on other models. The perceived grip is quite a bit short of good—or even optimal. I think the rim-tire combination, especially on the rear axle, could use some optimization or a redesign. I didn’t notice this as clearly with the yellow Lola—maybe I was just too excited about the new model.
CoMod JoergW
