 Hi, this is Shane Davis. It was late September 2005 when I visited my friend Merv Tyrio in Vancouver to talk about his connections to Lotus Engineering and to the Lotus 15 in particular. Merv has a long history of being involved with motor racing and exotic cars in general, an interest which continues today. Here is what Merv recalls of his time at Lotus and the development of the Lotus 15. I feel fortunate that I saw the Lotus 15 in conception. I saw it conceived and saw it through the pregnancy and I saw its birth and a couple of its offspring, but by explanation I lived a half a block away from the works on Tafton Court Road in North London and one night about 9, 10 o'clock I was out walking and the lights in the drafting shop above the showroom that you have pictures of, the lights were on so I went out. And here were two grown men, Frank Costin and Colin Chapman, on their hands and knees over great sheets of index paper and Chapman was drawing in the front wheels and sketching in the bump and droop that was required and then Costin also on his hands and knees looking away the other way was drawing in the body, the aerodynamic body outline. So here were these two genius attuned, they were only going by reference number and the other person would then draw in the body line and say his number and that's so when they got to the rear wheels and Chapman had put in the bump and droop and then Costin did his outline and Chapman on his hands and knees let out the most orgasmic groan because he had realized that this hip line was that of a beautiful woman and that was the conceiving, this was the 15 they were drawing and that was January, I think maybe March the first chassis came along and then as we were saying, chassis was set up on tripods, the motor was hung from a chain block and turned where it would fit within the chassis and then the motor mounts were constructed to hold the motor and then the trick I think was Willie Griffiths a brilliant man had vacuum cleaner hose to do the header pipes through the tangle of pipes and then poured fiberglass down them and it set overnight and then you took that off and set it off to the pipe bender to make the exhaust manifold but then Ian Jones the draftsman came in the next day and drew the blueprint of what had been fudged the night before and that's the way the cars were built the recollection that I had was the hours you worked and I think Frank Costin had the record of close to the 90 or 100 and 15 hour week that you sleep about every second night but I had been on one of these and I was maybe in about an 80 hour week but was welding in a motor bracket on the first 15 something and had a cup of tea on the floor beside me and the can of paint and here came to about a half hour later sitting there realizing that I picked this cup up to drink and it was the paint I had been painting the welded chassis with the tea that's how tired you can get now is this when you were first hired by Lovis or is that before that 57 Earl's Court about first week October and that was the time when I inquired and they said we'll come out 10 o'clock the next day and I had had one year welding a settling welding at Vancouver Tech so I knew how to start in a settle he toured and 10 o'clock the next morning I went out and they gave me two pieces of flat stock to butt weld I could start a talk start a torch and I continue I was said okay you're hired 45 cents an hour Canadian I think it was 2 Bob 10 at that time but I started immediately I just stayed and worked on and it was then later that day that I'd been given this aluminum casting this alley casting and said what's it for and they said don't talk about it just heated and put that spring shocker in it and that turned out to be for the first elite the first chaplain strut assembly for that elite for the Earl's Cove Earl's Court and then I continued on later that night over at the little Edmonton secret garage working with assembling that first elite and that was brilliant after being fortunate to get a job and my head was swimming just even a bench and making floor pedals foot pedals for the 11 but then that night to go here was Causton Mike Causton later Cosworth with Keith Duckworth this is now over at the little Edmonton shop all the gurus were there working free at night Chapman was there Causton was there Frailing was there the Ford man who designed the first elite and two or three of these others and I was in heaven to work overtime and into one o'clock in the morning assembly but I digress that's the elite back to the 15 and after the body panels came and this again was about it had to be ready for a race that day or the next day and the two left standing where Willie Griffiths and I on this first 15 and body panels were on and we bolted the wheels on Willie puts some gas in it and he said do you want to have a go I said wow so here's a brand-new car the motor hadn't been started I don't know that it had seat belts we certainly didn't have helmets but Willie driving so I was the first passenger and we went out onto the North Circular Road around London and at that time he did give me the thumbs up which in those days meant do you want to do the ton 100 miles an hour and of course yes yes as I said I don't think the car was an hour and a half on its wheels and down around we went and came back but it had to go to a race and the story there was a seem to be a typical Chapman con job but I believe a Belgian cloth merchant a Pierre Bircham put up the money before getting the car said I want something Chapman said they'll build it so Chapman raced that car at least two British races now Bill Colson will have the record of the first entries of 2015's in Britain but that broke a couple of times I recall Alice and then taken it out Cliff Alice and the rest of us and now he came in and it was about a two inch square 22 gauge vertical post between the lower front suspension and the upper front suspension and that was why Chapman painted all his chassis that light green because when metal broke you would see the black strip of the metal breaking and the 22 gauge had broke so it was my job to cut that out and put in a much heavier substantial piece 20 gauge so that's how Chapman built his cars but Pierre Bircham in my mind got that car about June or July after it had been well tested and the chassis two and chassis three would be a much more experienced chassis but the customer having to be more developed but the first race I was on and was with 15's and that was June the 8th 1958 and that was the Rouen in Rouen France but here's Allison's old London bus that was maybe 30 feet long inside the bus was two 15's no room for their bonnets so they were tied on the roof of the London bus we were going up a hill in France and nature called and Willie had to get out and relieve himself so I had I nipped up the hillside and have this photo somewhere of the London bus bonnets on top Willie leaning vertically with the bus at about a 20 degree slope on the road and Willie relieving himself but the people racing in those days talk about the golden age of racing the drivers of the bus Graham Hill Cliff Allison I never drove the bus was myself and Willie and I think John forgotten his last name but there was about five folk left the works with the two cars we prepared the cars still on the Dover ferry we were still assembling stuff and then slept somewhere but then drove on into Rouen and I looked up this year I believe Graham Hill on that race June the 8th 58 to mark 15's entered Graham Hill came second Cliff Allison I believe left the circuit that was the only 15's I worked on prior to the June Le Mans where and now this really gets interesting you have some photos there of the May MA YET French garage where Chapman out of the way did the work on his cars but Pete lovely and Jay Chamberlain car 35 and I was the mechanic and I reminded Pete this year the middle of the night they had an inflated tunnel like a inflated bed to get some aerodynamics and I was sent out about three in the morning to knock on all the tailors and dry goods stores and get a three foot zipper and we could zip and divide this tunnel that the driver could get in but that all worked and we got it but and if I find it I purchased a newspaper after practice on the Friday and the headline is Allison Dumont Allison the world because Cliff Allison had the two liter F.P.F. mark 15 and he set the lap record and the lap that day and this was the newspaper Allison Dumont you set the record but what wasn't known was as he came in on his warm down lap the little cork gasket around the radiator split and it peed all the water out of the F.P.F two liter engine and the engine fried and about 200 feet in his coming into the pits and everybody is running out to meet him congratulations you've set the record and Cliff is waving his fist we've done it and he's giving in the signal that he needs pushing so everybody runs and crowds around him and pushes him in and then we're told that the only two liter engine in existence or might have been one back in England had fried the man that had set the record and got the newspaper headlines as a result Porsche took their engines apart that night and reworked them tighter and I think the records will show only they overstressed them and only about half the Porsches finished the race for every one of them to be in but Porsche in the thinking that they had to beat Lotus did not know the Lotus car was not operational and so that was Cliff Allison well car 35 is the one I worked on and I think Cliff was car 36 how many 15s were at the I don't remember were the three max oh three max three max and in this Ireland and Graham Hill had one and I remember the change when Hill came in or the other driver was in his if it wasn't Hill but I remember on the pit walk on the pit bench as when it was in his turn he was doing leap ups jump ups to get psyched up and he leapt off that pit counter into that car and was gone like a shot he was racing before he got into the car that was you were in the P lovely pit weren't you or was it just the single Lotus the race starts at four o'clock right and they had all got away and it was good weather sunshine till about eight o'clock and the car the clouds absolutely empty and you have that slide that I took up the half covered bleachers people just doubled up and were back in the bleachers and the rain was it was absolutely torrential and it was then just during that in this rain Chamberlain was driving and under the Dunlop Bridge he was it was his right front nicked Pugeot Renault something and he crashed and then that story which the rumor that has come out that at about midnight when he crashed some French businessman having a glass of wine by the circuit saw the driver chamberlain was knocked out into the circuit and this man hopped the fence and went out and pulled chamberlain off the circuit that picture on the poster is when I went down about eight nine o'clock in the morning and took a picture of the crashed car that was still there I think that was my experience with 15s after that I went other British circuits but it was with the 12 with the single search see here other because there was about a dozen mechanics and you would work on a car in the reason that I think I had lovelies car probably I'd help build it you knew they would leave a mechanic to build a car and then take it to a circuit so it was sort of car and mechanics but after that it was mostly 12s and then worked on that first 16 the front engine Lotus 16 which is now in these last years of historic racing is beating they finally got it sorted out after 40 years it's beating in the F1 class historians but so with the 15 that developed directly from the 11 didn't it yes so how did Colin Chapman reason this he knew that the 11 was fast and it was light and it was very maneuverable so he developed the 15 with those principles but made a larger car in between the 11 with the FWA 1100 engine and then they sleep that down to the 750 that won the index in 57 they also board out that FWA engine it was called the FWB but it was a single cam 1500 cc so there was a few of those went into 11 and this was just about the year second year of disc brakes and they were doing well and it was then that reaching for something better that in January 58 as I say the conception of the 15 came out that had the double knocker and somewhere you could find out when Coventry Climax made that double cam FPF available that it would be sometime in there I think Cooper was using it the fall of 57 but it was as materials came available and you know Chapman had this extraordinary ingeniousness of bringing together the best and he had devised the Chapman strut in that October 57 elite but then the 15 had it prior to that the 11's all had the heavier DD on tube for their independent rear end but then he devised that three piece Chapman strut that only three pieces won the axle kept the wheels apart to the shocker kept the weight on it and then a trailer or a forward arm to the body gave the suspension so he reduced the sprung weight down considerably with that design and so the 15 had that advantage and then the larger engine and the engine in that was cantered I think at about 7 degrees something the 16 the Formula 1 was a disaster because he sat the engine over at about 30 or 40 degrees and cantered it brought the shaft beside the driver and it was just the universals were taking too much power but brilliant man a brilliant innovative man and I just last year 05 Britain bought the Chapman book that was not authorised but called the wayward genius and that's about the talent the man had he could bring together all the thinking of other people people thought about it said it can't be done Chapman brought it together and did it so he had that ability so the 15 developed to a larger engine and it grew to two liters did it not yes started out the one and a half liter and then as components as they say metal tubes were taken from 22 gauge to 20 and maybe for the two liter he made it 18 but you that's development and that's why Lotus is world renowned it had that ability to bend the wheels it was the most interesting a little bit yet in going through strut screw nearing for the 58 Le Mans the screw nears the French screw nears got required that all the Lotus cars entered had to be in one spot at one time and all had to have tops because the previous year I'm sure you know the story all the Lotus cars only had you only had time to make one top so he put the cars in one at a time put the top on it put the car in the garage ran back with the top put it on the next car and that was in 57 and those are the dodges the man was another thing with Lotus 12 the single-seater I think it was Aintree the cars were numbered 15 and 16 and him was driving one and Allison was driving the other one but when we went out for practice took it up from Hornsey to Aintree only one car was built and so the rest of them were working furiously to build the second car but one car went out practiced Allison in it mechanics all crowded around one guy peeled off the five stick him on the thing put on a six and we fueled it and the other driver went out in the second car which was still being built at the factory so both cars on Saturday practice had qualifying times Mike Costin about one or one thirty in the morning in Hornsey put the second car on the trailer towed it out to Aintree and it was there hadn't run but was on the grid the next day qualifying and I don't think they finished forgotten I think that was the race when he lost his brakes and that he drove the rest of the race on gear shift and came in respectable but without brakes gearing into a corner when he came in he could not get out of the car lifted him out of the car and he was carried over against a fence and Chapman talked to him for about a half an hour and that photo was in the dogwood the doghouse in Silverstone somebody had taken a picture of Chapman on his knees talking to him that was the fiber those guys had just incredible Superman regarding Pete Lovely Shane I did not know of Pete Lovely's 15 out here I think I was still in Britain Vince knows much more about that but the Pete Lovely story I have Pete had to buy that car I understand that Chapman did that again give me the money I'll build you a car you can race for the team the incident I graphically remember it was noon hour I just had lunch in the pub and I was walking back to the works and to give you the incisiveness of this man Chapman nobody had the balls to call him chunky to his face that was his nickname but he was walking from the office and was about four paces from me as I was walking we were going to pass I was going back to the works and he said you're from the Northwest what do you know about Pete Lovely and as that he passed me and I said Mr. Chapman he is brilliant and he will fit in your cars and that was it Chapman had found out what he wanted to know and Lovely since has said that his eligibility to race for Team Lotus was he had to buy a car and Vince knows more there are photos around of Lovely he raced along within us Ireland I think in a formula car I don't know the rest of that but Lovely did very well and Lovely thought that after that rain in Le Mans 58 it was insane can you he said that he told Chapman to take us out of the race he said this race is insane so you can go to ask Lovely about that he was there but that's why stories about Peter thoroughly enjoyed Vince suggesting we go down to that fabulous 50s in Los Angeles last December that was brilliant that was when Lovely was inducted into the fabulous 50s so that's my story about Lovely. Perhaps a few facts about the Lotus 15 are in order the 15 was built from 1958 to 1960 27 cars were constructed with the first ones carrying the one and a half liter motors and the later ones the two liter motors and then the two and a half liter motors the 15 had a space frame chassis with independent front suspension utilizing wishbones and coil springs coil springs were also utilized at the rear with Chapman struts the overall length was 11 foot five inches with a wheel base of seven foot four inches with its aluminum body it was very light several cars carried different motors but the factory motors were Coventry Climax it was the last of the front engine Lotus sports cars built by Colin Chapman factory drivers such as Graham Hill and Cliff Allison drove their 15s with great style the Lotus 15 was indeed very fast and very maneuverable here we see Cliff Allison and his Lotus 15 during the 1958 British Empire trophy race at Ulton Park several Lotus 15s were exported to the west coast of North America Jay Chamberlain is seen here at speed when the westward circuit opened in British Columbia in July of 1959 it was a great day for the Lotus 15 Pete Lovely won the main event in number 125 through the years other drivers such as Pat Pickett Lou Florence and Ralph Ormsby raced 15s at Westwood they were always exciting to watch there has always been the need with race drivers to go even faster some Lotus 15s had bigger more powerful motors installed such as this Lotus Buick in recent years with the popularity of vintage racing 15s are campaigned in many countries of the world of course development has improved the reliability of the Lotus 15 and also improved the speed in 2002 I was fortunate enough to attend the Goodwood revival in England here we see car number 31 in the paddock before it takes to the track this year is 2008 that is 50 years since the inception of the Lotus 15 I asked Merterio how his days at Lotus had affected his life here is what he said I think that ability to stay on one's feet and work when dog tired and was just when I then started the business I had an apprenticeship with how to live without sleep thank you 2008 marks the 50th year of the birth of the Lotus 15 celebrations of this remarkable event are well in order many thanks to Merterio for sharing his memories and experiences of working at Lotus engineering