The toe-in-water origins of Lotus's groundbreaking F1 journey

For a man who initially had little interest in Lotus pursuing a future in Formula 1, you could say Colin Chapman made quite an impression on grand prix racing. Britain's answer to Enzo Ferrari? Absolutely – for better and for worse. Half a century ago, BRM was considered the British equivalent to those "bloody red cars", largely because it also built the engines that powered its chassis (albeit much less effectively most of the time).