The man who designed the first rear-engined car to win at Indianapolis and the first American car to win in Formula One has died at the age of 90. Len Terry, who penned both the Lotus 38-Ford with which Jim Clark won at Indy in 1965 and the All American Racers Eagle-Weslake that Dan Gurney drove to victory at Spa in 1967, hailed from Tottenham, near London and first worked at Lotus in the 1950s. He then returned to the team in the early 1960s, helping develop the championship-winning Lotus 25 into the Lotus 33 that Clark took to his second World Championship, also in 1965.
Terry first became acquainted with Gurney while helping develop Dan’s Lotus 19 at the factory, and wriggled his way out of the final months of his Lotus contract to come to America and design the first Eagles for AAR.
As a youth, Terry dreamed of being a driver, but by age 13 had come to the realization that this would not be. “I think most people in any sport reach their moment of truth,” he once explained, “when they sort of realize that they are never gonna be best in the world, and I think I sort of long ago realized I was never gonna be a World Champion racing driver.” So, he diverted his efforts toward design and made a fine career for himself.
To his family and all his many friends in the sport, Vintage Racecar extends its sincerest sympathies.
