Back in January, we ran a story about favorite racecars and asked RACER.com readers to select their top five. Your votes flooded in and, in the end, we had more than 400 different racecars to consider… but 10 clear favorites emerged.
Many of you had found it tricky to narrow your favorites down to just five, yet some of you had a clear No. 1 and no others. And, like ours, many of your selections were ones that fulfilled multiple criteria from a personal point of view – aesthetic beauty, period when you were first becoming addicted to racing, success, livery, piloted by your heroes. We understand, completely!
Your favorite racecars #10: Porsche 956/962
Your favorite racecars #9: Chaparral 2K
Your favorite racecars #8: Lotus 49
Your favorite racecars #7: Lola T70
Your favorite racecars #6: Ford GT40
Your favorite racecars #5: Porsche 917K
Your favorite racecars #4: Ferrari 330 P3/P4
Your favorite racecars #3: Lotus 38
2. Lotus 79
Who said cars shouldn’t be designed by committee? The Lotus 79 was the work of Lotus founder Colin Chapman, Martin Ogilvie, Tony Rudd, Peter Wright and Geoff Aldridge – and it was a true gem. How many factors earned this car the right to No. 2 in your all-time list? Well, where do we start…?
Its shape
Look at a grand prix grid from 1978, and you’ll notice it is largely populated by machines that look like 
overgrown Formula 2 cars of the day or appear to be remnants and evolutions of F1 cars from back in ’76, when FISA first mandated the removal of overhead airboxes. The cockpit areas are bulky, bulbous and high, and while I have no figures to prove it, I’d be willing to bet the center of gravity and the frontal area of a Lotus 79 is far lower than that of say, a Ferrari 312T3 or Tyrrell 008. Yes, there were many good-looking cars there, but with the exception of the Brabham BT46, most of them looked a couple seasons of behind the Lotus.
The 79’s sleek lines were also simple and tidy. Its predecessor, the Lotus 78 had a vent in the nose, the “Mickey Mouse Ears” air-intakes behind the driver’s head that faired into a beret-like engine cover which left most of the Cosworth block exposed and led to a similarly untidy rear end. In fact, the 78 ended up looking like the previous year’s 77 but with long sidepods hung onto it. The Lotus 79, by contrast, looked like a clean-sheet design with far more emphasis on aero efficiency and its low engine cover and low, long and wide sidepods were neat and smooth in side-profile, with just a flick up as they reached the rear-wheels.
And let’s not overlook its livery. The black-and-gold of John Player Special cigarettes had been established on the Lotus 72 six years earlier. But the gold pin-striping helped emphasize the subtle simplicity of the shapes that adorned the 79 and turned this elegant machine into a piece of art.
Its functionality
Mario Andretti had loved the 78’s ability to hug the road but pointed out that “in a straight line, it couldn’t get out of its own way.” The 79 cured all that, and not just through the reduced number of protrusions into its 
overbody airflow. Look at this 78 cutaway (LEFT), and note how its sidepods and underfloor stop just ahead of the front wheels. Then note the contrast with the 79’s engine cover (BELOW) which was almost all-enveloping and continued on back between the rear wheels, as did the under-floor venturi tunnels which were key to the magic of ground-effect.
This substantial extension of the amount of underbody that was harnessing ground effect naturally moved the center of pressure rearward. So whereas the naturally pointy, on-the-nose handling of the 78 had required a barn-door rear 
wing to balance – further increasing its already considerable drag – the 79 was inherently more neutral, and so its rear wing plane could be that much shallower and more aero-friendly.
Also enhancing the 79’s handling was the fact that underneath that sleek shroud of rear bodywork was a single, central fuel cell (rather than the two on the 78), which meant the car behaved more consistently from full-tanks to empty and there was less weight shifting longitudinally and laterally.
Its success
“Black Beauty” became synonymous with glory. Although it was the previous season’s 78 that scored the Lotus team’s first two wins of 1978 –Andretti in Argentina, Ronnie Peterson in South Africa – Chapman elected to try the new 79 in the non-championship International Trophy at Silverstone but both cars aquaplaned and crashed in monsoon conditions. In Round 5 at Monaco, Andretti drove the new car in practice but raced the old 78. Then at Zolder, equipped with the 79, he made the car’s race debut. It demolished the opposition with a dominant pole position and led from start to finish (with Peterson finishing second in a 78). In Jarama, both Mario and Peterson had a 79, and Mario led a 1-2.
Anderstorp (BELOW) saw rival designer Gordon Murray’s inspired counterattack with the “Fan Car” Brabham BT46B which 
was so dominant that eventual winner Niki Lauda and teammate John Watson qualified on full tanks to hide their advantage! Meanwhile, Andretti’s engine dropped a valve soon after he was passed for the lead by Lauda at around half-distance, and Peterson could finish no better than third.
However, at Paul Ricard, the Lotus pair finished 1-2 once more, and although Brands Hatch was a bust, at Hockenheim, Andretti won again while Peterson retired with gearbox failure. Each driver, therefore, had suffered two mechanical DNFs, and Mario now led Ronnie in the championship by 18 points, (at this time, points were distributed 9-6-4-3-2-1 to the top six finishers) with five rounds to go.
Next was Austria and there Peterson (BELOW) beat Andretti to pole, and Mario made his only significant mistake of the year. After a tardy start in wet conditions, he dropped behind Carlos Reutemann’s Ferrari, tried to regain second on the first lap 
with an overambitious round-the-outside maneuver and touched a white line which sent him into the barriers. Furious with himself, Mario ruefully saw his championship lead halved as Ronnie won.
Andretti re-established his pre-eminence within the team by beating Peterson to pole and victory in Zandvoort, but it was close – Mario’s exhaust was broken and Ronnie was almost out of rear brakes by the end of the race. And then at Monza came disaster. Andretti took pole, but an accident in practice meant Peterson had to revert to the Lotus 78 which he qualified fifth. A startline shunt smashed his legs and later that night, complications during surgery cost the gentle Swede his life.
Andretti had crossed the line first that dark day at Monza, but he and second-place finisher Ferrari’s Gilles Villeneuve were each penalized a minute for a jumped start. However, the single point Mario got for sixth place was enough to win him the title.
At Watkins Glen, Mario took pole, while in the season finale, at Montreal, Peterson’s substitute Jean-Pierre Jarier started first, but neither could win. When the following year’s Lotus 80 proved a failure, Andretti (usually) and new teammate Carlos Reutemann (always) utilized the Lotus 79 but it had been overtaken by a lot of cars that had copied the principles of the 79 but had inherently greater stiffness, rendering the Lotus obsolete.
Still, six wins (five for Andretti, one for Peterson), 10 poles (seven for Andretti, two for Peterson, one for Jarier), a Drivers’ Championship for Mario and a Constructors Championship for Lotus is more than enough to earn the Lotus 79 a place in the pantheon of great cars.
Its driver(s)
The 38-year-old Mario Andretti had been through lean and hungry times. He’d proven he had what it takes at Formula 1 level from the moment he started, taking pole position for his first grand prix, at Watkins Glen in 1968 but he’d taken a long time to commit to a full-time program, as he preferred solid deals in Indy car racing while waiting for the right opportunity in F1. Even when he signed with Chapman two races into the ’76 season (after the Parnelli team abruptly withdrew), Mario chose to race in the Indy 500 for Penske rather than the Monaco GP for Lotus.
After that, however, Chapman and Andretti were absolutely committed. Andretti won the season finale that year in the Mount Fuji monsoon, and in 1977 he finally took part in a complete season and won more races than anyone else, using that draggy but limpet-like Lotus 78. To this day, Mario curses the fact that operational errors and “development” Cosworth DFVs – 10 more horsepower but about 40 percent more unreliability – killed off his chances of winning the title in that season.
If nothing else, however, the fragility of those extra-hp Cossies had two effects: 1) Chapman finally listened to Mario’s pleading – “Just give me the proven gear, same as everyone else,” – and 2) Mario erred on the side of caution and rigidly stuck to a rev-limit on race days in the Lotus 79, some 400rpm below the engine’s redline. He was able to do this because he trusted Ronnie to abide by the contract that stated if both cars finished in tandem, it was to be Mario ahead. Had the Lotus drivers gone at it bare-knuckle style, as they did in qualifying, there would have been far more DNFs, because the Lotus, while innovative, was structurally at its very limits. Broken exhausts and rapidly-fading rear brakes were regular bugs.
And to be honest, the No. 1 / No. 2 deal was blown out of proportion at the time and remains so to this day, because it was only twice in their 13 races together that it may have made a difference to the outcome of a race. Ronnie was a self-confessedly hopeless test driver with little technical understanding of his cars, and so used his amazing car control and to try and make up for the fact that he’d not set up his car to perfection. The problem was, such an exuberant driving style in a ground effect car was over-driving, time-wasting and cooked his qualifying tires. That’s why Peterson often used to qualify on race rubber, and why he was outpaced by his teammate more often than not. But Ronnie’s latent genius shone through on several occasions too, notably his drive to pole at Brands Hatch and that final win at the Osterreichring.
As well as losing a great driver that night after the Monza accident, Formula 1 lost an honorable man. Andretti had befriended Peterson, knew him from the days when they raced Ferrari sports cars, and treated him like a long-lost Viking brother. Two stars on one team rarely works well, and rarer still is for those two stars to actively seek each other’s company between races. But Mario and Ronnie were grown ups (the Swede was only four years younger than his veteran teammate) who knew how to contain their egos and keep their intra-team rivalry to the race track, and became genuine friends. For these reasons, and because Mario’s success had gained media attention in this country and was enabling F1 to become firmly established on the west coast at Long Beach, as well as its traditional venue in Watkins Glen, Peterson was probably America’s second-favorite F1 driver.
And so for reasons of triumph and tragedy, gold and black, karma and drama, the Lotus 79 is RACER readers’ second-favorite racecar. But without that jaw-dropping beauty, there’s surely no way it would have been so high.
Some of your comments…
Tom Jensen: “Arguably the high-water mark in Formula 1 ground-effects cars, the Lotus 79 shared a trait many great-looking race cars have: impeccably clean lines and a purity of purposefulness. That it was a world championship car and carried the JPS livery made it that much better.”
Corky Hellmer: “This wasn’t a hard choice for me. All I needed to do was look at my computer wallpaper. When I first saw this black and gold beauty in my brother’s car magazines as a boy, I was mesmerized by its beautiful lines and curves. I still admire that beauty today just as I did back then.”
Steve Selasky: “A prime example of ‘out of the box’ thinking. You wonder why no one thought of it earlier.”
Allen Lasko: “Gold and black, JPS and Olympus camera logos. Nice coincidence that the car reached the F1 pinnacle that year, it was truly atop Mount Olympus. I cheered for that car, as I bought my first SLR camera in 1977, an Olympus OM2, with the extra cost black body. Sleek, just like the Lotus. Light and great handling, just like the Lotus. I still have and use that camera, by the way.
Aryo Bimo Novandri: “Chapman’s design simplicity, all-conquering Ford DFV, Innovative ground effect makes the beautiful Lotus 79 even sweeter. Andretti is champion and Lotus win constructor championship.”
Christopher Pericak: “Two reasons: this open-wheeler just looks right; and it’s Mario Andretti’s world-championship winning car (Mario’s my hero).”
Jon Paulette: “My Dad gave me my first subscription to Road & Track in 1978, the year Mario and Ronnie were dominating F1 with these cars. I was 9 or 10 at the time, so much like a baby duck, I imprinted on the first F1 car I ever saw. Thank gawd I didn’t see a picture of a March 711. Interestingly, my all-time favorite Indycar is the Chaparral 2K, which has quite a lot in common with the Lotus 79.”
Mike Dickerson: “Perfect lines, big tires, and a simple and VERY classy livery.”
Preston Proctor: “’Black Beauty’ forever changed racecar design and was a tribute to both Colin Chapman and Mario Andretti’s constant development of the Lotus 78. Don’t think there has ever been a more beautiful open wheel machine.”
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Looked good in Martini colors, too, in 1979. Although outmoded, the 79 was more trustworthy than the overly complicated new 80, and so the old beauty was pressed into service for another complete season. Carlos Reutemann (pictured) and Andretti scored a handful of podiums.
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