Lotus Turbine

Lotus Turbine, an Ira Gilford design for the 1969 Grand Prix series, is modeled on the real 1968 Lotus 56, a wedge-shaped, four-wheel-drive Indianapolis 500 racer powered by an industrial gas turbine rather than a piston engine. That real car ran into reliability trouble at Indy and was later rebuilt as the 56B for a handful of Formula 1 outings driven by Graham Hill, after USAC banned turbine engines and four-wheel drive following the 1968 season. The die-cast version used blue-tinted glass on production runs, with interiors offered in black, white, and champagne.