Colin Chapman
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Anthony Colin Bruce Chapman (9 May 1928 - 16 December 1982) was born in London and studied mechanical engineering. He founded the famous sports car company Lotus in 1952. His initials are shown in the trademark of Lotus. He died of a heart attack.
Chapman started with the Mk1, a small soap box on wheels, which he entered privately into local racing events. With the prize money he developed the Mk2, Mk3 each with growing success, and as such he could begin to sell kits of these cars. It was the Mk7 where things really took off, and indeed Caterham still make that car today, and several copy-cat makes are also available.
Chapman progressed through the motor racing formulae, until he arrive in Formula 1. He, along with Colin Cooper, revolutionised the sport. Their small, lightweight vehicles gave away much in terms of power, but superior handling meant they could take on and beat the all conquering Ferraris and Maseratis. With his beloved driver Jim Clark at the wheel, they could win races almost as they pleased, and Jim Clark would surely have won many more titles where it not for his untimely death in 1968 behind the wheel of a Formula 2 Lotus. Chapman was greatly affected by his death, and never allowed himself to get so close to his drivers again.
It wasn't purely as a designer that he excelled; he was also a canny businessman who introduced sponsorship into Formula 1, beginning the process of raising the sport from gentlemens entertainment to multi-million pound enterprise. Unfortunately he made a bad decision to become involved with a new venture of his friend John De Lorean, to manufacture sports cars. The full extent of his involvement has never been discovered (Or, at least, publicly revealed), but it is believed he would have been prosecuted for his involvement of inveigling government funds.
Innovations
A true genius, many of his ideas can still be seen in Formula 1 today. It was he who introduced the concept of positive aerodynamic downforce through the addition of front and rear wings. Early efforts were mounted 3 feet or so above the car, in order to operate in 'clean air' (i.e. air that would not otherwise be disturbed by the passage of the car). However the thin supporting struts failed regularly, forcing the FIA to require the wings to be attached directly to the bodywork.
Another concept of Chapmans was 'ground effect' - whereby a vacuum was created under the car via sliding skirts and venturis. This was also banned, as if, during cornering, the car went over a kerb and the skirt lifted, all downforce was lost, and the car became extremely unstable. The banning of this really got to him, and precipitated ill health, which was to dog him for the final few years of his life.
Finally, Chapman pioneered the use of struts as a rear suspension device. Even today, struts used in the rear of a vehicle are known as Chapman struts.
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