As the founder of Lotus Colin Chapman is a legendry and heroic figure in the history of motor sport. An engineer, designer and team leader who transformed the sport and produced along the way a string of classic racing cars. Yet, as this book shows he had a darker side; wide boy, womanizer, stealer of other people's ideas and glory, who was saved from a prison sentence for his part in the DeLorean scandal only by his premature death.
Mike Lawrence paints a 'warts and all' portrait of Chapman from his early days selling second-hand cars whilst still at school, though the glory days of team Lotus, to the Delorean affair. However, despite Chapman's obvious human failings I felt that the book dwelt on them too much. I was already aware that much of Chapman's glory was largely the work of others, but in a sense that was his genius; Chapman could produce an environment in which others were inspired to give their best. Take 'ground effect' both BRM and March had most of the pieces years before Lotus, but Chapman was the first to assemble the right team in the right conditions for it to work.
So I would say that this is an interesting book on Chapman, but one that frequently gives the impression of being poorly researched, especially the very perfunctory treatment of the DeLorean affair which is mostly from a single source. Although not about Chapman John Tipler's 'Lotus 78 and 79, The Ground-Effect Cars' (reviewed above) gives a clearer and more concise view of Chapman.
Beedon Books, 255 pages
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