It was of course Lola who won the first Can-Am championship in 1966 when John Surtees steered his T70 to three victories in the series and of the remaining three rounds Dan Gurney and Mark Donohue won one each in their T70s. However 1967 saw the arrival of the unstoppable orange force, Team McLaren or "The Bruce and Denny Show" as their almost total domination became known but Lola were still in there fighting all the way. John Surtees and Mark Donohue took third and fourth in 1967 with their T70 Mk3Bs with Surtees winning the final round at Las Vegas. For 1968 Lola designed the T160 but with most of the major teams and drivers switching to McLaren and the threat of the Chaparrals results were poor with a best finish of fourth with Swede Savage, Sam Posey and Chuck Parsons each managing this position. A new car was developed for 1969, the T163 and Chuck Parsons showed that if you forgot the works McLaren M8B there wasn't much wrong with it when he took third in the overall standings with a best result of second at Riverside. Peter Revson was drafted in to drive the T222 in 1970 and although he frequently qualified up at the front of the grid poor reliability saw too many retirements, best finishes were second at Mid-Ohio and thirds at Donnybrooke and Laguna Seca.

1971 saw Lola wheel out the big guns in an effort to halt the McLaren juggernaut, not only a new car, the T260, but also something special in the driver department, World Champion Jackie Stewart. To complete the package the very experienced Carl Haas team would run the new contender.

Jackie Stewart at the helm with the T260 featuring the "cow catcher" front wing. (The Lola Archive)

The T260 can still be seen today competing in Historic racing. (Picture Glyn Jones)

The T260, designed by Bob Marston with Eric Broadley overseeing, comprised a full monocoque in L72 and NS4 light alloys bonded and riveted together with the fuel bags in either side of the tub with a total capacity of 60 gallons. The oil tank was contained in the rear of the left-hand fuel section. The rear of the monocoque reached to the back of the engine which was sandwiched between two bulkheads, a bell-housing supported the gearbox and absorbed suspension loads.

Cooling was via two brass-finned Serck radiators mounted behind the driver's shoulder level and fed by two large NACA ducts on the top of the bodywork, the radiators vented through the large louvres in the rear bodywork. Two oil coolers were mounted behind the water radiators and used the same ducts, an additional transmission cooler lay flat over the gearbox. The bodywork was evolved following extensive tests in the Specialised Mouldings wind tunnel and featured a short, bluff nosecone with gauze-covered holes on the top to equalise pressure. At the base of the nose were two air ducts to feed air to the front discs, at the rear two ram pipes on the top of the rear body section collected the cooling air for the rear discs.

The front suspension on the T260 consisted on unequal length wishbones, the upper ones were triangulated to form bell-cranks that operated Bilstein dampers and coil springs which lay almost horizontally across the front of the tub. Rack and pinion steering was ahead of the front suspension. At the rear there was a short adjustable top link and a long radius arm attaching to the front engine bulkhead, a lower member extended rearwards to a cross-member bolted to the rear face of the gearbox. The springs and dampers fixed to the lower member and transmitted their load to tubular outriggers on the gearbox bell-housing.

Lola-made centre-lock, peg-drive magnesium wheels were fitted, diameter was 15 inches with 10.5 inch front and 17 inch rear Goodyear tyres. The battery was mounted in the nose and a Graviner fire extinguisher was fitted behind the dashboard.

The engine was a 496 cu in (8.1 litres) V8 Chevrolet tuned by George Foltz, it produced some 700+ bhp and 618 lb-ft of torque, Lucas fuel injection was fitted with a Scintilla Vertex magneto and a Hewland 4-speed gearbox transmitted the power.

The T260 on its announcement, the rear wing would later be moved further back. (The Lola Archive)

Jackie Stewart is seen here in qualifying at Mosport Park, round 1 of the 1971 CanAm series. (The Lola Archive)