There are racing cars that win, racing cars that innovate, and racing cars that simply seize hold of the imagination and refuse to let go. The Lola T70 belongs emphatically in that last category, while managing the first two as well. Long, low and gloriously unapologetic, it arrived in the mid-1960s like a thunderclap from Huntingdon: a machine of Anglo-American muscle, drawn with exquisite restraint and powered by the sort of V8 that made civilised conversation impossible. If the Ford GT40 was the establishment bruiser, the T70 was the privateer’s dream; lighter on its feet, devastatingly handsome and, for a time, one of the most effective sports-racers in the world.
Its story begins, of course, with Eric Broadley, that most gifted of British constructors, whose instinct for proportion and packaging had already made Lola a serious force before the T70 was even sketched. Broadley’s Mk6 GT had informed the original GT40 concept, and from that experience came the confidence to create a car that was simpler, lighter and more adaptable. Introduced in 1965, the T70 used an aluminium monocoque clothed in sleek fibreglass, with double wishbone suspension and room behind the driver for robust American V8 power. It was, in essence, a pragmatic masterpiece: not overcomplicated, not over-styled, but exactly what the era required. Early cars ran in open spyder form, and they looked every inch the predatory sports-racer – wide of stance, low of nose and all engine.
The T70 wasted little time proving itself. Walt Hansgen gave the model an early statement victory at Laguna Seca in 1965, and by 1966 it had become the car to beat in the inaugural Can-Am championship. John Surtees, all incisive intelligence and velvet-brutal speed, was central to that rise. He understood the T70’s dual nature: immense power in a straight line, yes, but also a poise that made it more than a blunt instrument. In Chevrolet form, especially, the car dominated, taking five wins from six Can-Am races in 1966 and delivering Surtees the title. Here was the essence of the T70: a car muscular enough for North America, sophisticated enough for Europe, and always blessed with the sort of visual drama that made every paddock feel slightly more glamorous for its presence.
Yet the T70’s most enduring image is not the open spyder but the coupé, the Mk III and later Mk3B, introduced as sports-car racing tilted increasingly toward endurance sophistication. With its enclosed cockpit, fastback tail and beautifully judged proportions, the coupé was one of those rare competition machines that looked complete from every angle. More importantly, it gave Lola a weapon for the great long-distance battles. Regulation changes for 1968 kept five-litre sports cars in the fight, and the T70, though no longer the newest idea in the pitlane, remained highly relevant. Private teams loved it because it was fast, relatively accessible and mechanically intelligible. It could be campaigned hard without the resources of Maranello, Stuttgart or Dearborn – and that, in period racing, counted for a great deal.
The high-water mark came at Daytona in 1969, when the Team Penske Lola-Chevrolet of Mark Donohue and Chuck Parsons scored a famous one-two for the model in the 24 Hours. It was the T70’s greatest endurance triumph and an appropriately hard-earned one, achieved not through romantic mythology but through speed, preparation and resilience. Against Ford GT40s and Porsche opposition, the Lola did what the best Broadley designs often did: it combined obvious pace with an underlying efficiency of purpose. It was not always blessed with the bulletproof aura of the Ford, nor the ultimate factory backing of its continental rivals, but in the right hands it could be devastating. That is why the T70 became so beloved by privateers and remains so revered by historic racers today.
Ask those who have driven one properly and they will tell you the same thing: the T70 is not merely loud or fast, but alive. It has that deliciously period combination of lightness, visibility and intimidation. The small-block Chevrolet snarls inches from your spine, the nose seems to skim the tarmac, and every control input feels direct, unfiltered, mechanical. For all its brute reputation, the best T70s are not clumsy things. They can be beautifully balanced, almost delicate in their responses, so long as the driver remembers that more than 500bhp in a featherweight 1960s chassis is not a combination to be treated carelessly. Perhaps that is why the car has endured. It is not just a shape or a soundtrack, but an experience – one that places the driver squarely at the centre of the drama.
Which brings us neatly to the T70S. Announced in 2026 by the revived Lola Cars, it is not presented as a casual retro pastiche or a cartoonish restomod, but as a faithful rebirth of the T70 ethos, based closely on the later Mk3B coupé. Limited to just 16 examples, the project has been developed from original archive drawings and detailed scans of surviving cars, with the intention of preserving the form and feel of the original while applying the precision of modern manufacturing. The competition-spec T70S uses a lightweight aluminium monocoque, period-style suspension layout and a 5.0-litre Chevrolet V8 producing around 530bhp, while being eligible for historic competition through FIA papers. Alongside it sits the T70S GT, a road-registered variant intended to make the improbable seem wonderfully real: a T70 you can drive on the road without wholly sacrificing its savagery. And hovering around the programme, usefully, is a figure who understands both the demands of a fast racing car and the value of motorsport theatre: Johnny Herbert. Appointed Lola Cars’ Global Brand Ambassador in 2025, Herbert has become one of the public faces of the T70S story, presenting the new car in Lola’s own walkaround material and, more significantly, driving David Piper’s original Mk3B at Silverstone as part of the development work behind the project. That matters, because the T70S is not merely trying to look right in static profile; Lola wants it to feel right as well, and Herbert’s involvement helps underline the seriousness of that ambition.
What is most intriguing about the T70S is the restraint with which Lola appears to have approached it. Rather than smothering the concept in screens, driver modes and synthetic theatre, the company has chosen what it calls respectful refinement. The road-going T70S GT receives subtle ergonomic improvements, climate control, modest storage and a Lola-developed powertrain pairing better suited to road use, but the visual and mechanical intent remains steadfastly old-school. More unexpectedly, the new cars also serve as a rolling manifesto for Lola’s material science. Where the original T70 wore fibreglass, the T70S adopts the firm’s patent-pending Lola Natural Composite System, a bodywork structure made from laminated plies of plant fibres sourced from Northern European agriculture and basalt fibres drawn from volcanic rock, all bound together with a wholly plant-based resin derived from sugar cane waste. Lola describes the result as entirely petrochemical-free, which is a striking claim in a world where advanced composites usually mean carbon fibre and synthetic resins. More important still is that this is not being presented as a worthy compromise. Initial test data suggests the LNCS panels offer greater tensile strength and stiffness than traditional glassfibre composite, together with improved impact tolerance over both GRP and carbonfibre systems. Even the tooling and mould processes have been reconsidered with lower-carbon materials, helping Lola claim a cradle-to-gate CO2 reduction of 54 per cent compared with conventional manufacture. It is a thoroughly modern intervention, yet one deployed in service of an old idea: low weight, structural honesty and purity of response.
And that, in the end, is why the Lola T70 still matters. It represents a moment when sports-racing cars were at once elegant and ferocious, when private entrants could still take the fight to giants, and when engineering brilliance wore its complexity lightly. The original T70 earned its reputation on circuits from Laguna Seca to Daytona, through Can-Am thunder and endurance attrition, and it did so with a style few rivals could touch. If the new T70S succeeds, it will not be because it is merely nostalgic, but because it understands what made the original special in the first place: not just the shape, not just the noise, but the intoxicating marriage of beauty, simplicity and brute force. Some cars belong to history. The Lola T70, apparently, has no intention of staying there.
