In a previous life ( 
) I used to be heavily involved with scale modelling. Shortly after Chris Boardman won Olympic Gold on the Lotus bike, I got aquainted with with Rudy Thomann who helped develop the bike at Lotus (before anybody says anything, I know Mike Burrows came up with the concept). Long story short .... Rudy would sometimes drop round after cycling home after working at Lotus (I lived not too far from the factory at Hethel) and I was eventually asked to build a 1:9 scale model of the Lotus Olympic bike. Not sure what happened to the model after it was delivered to Lotus, somebody told me that it was put on display somewhere in the offices.
I did build one more identical to the commisioned model, for my own collection, which I still have.
Below are pics of the model in component form before assembly and finishing, and one of the completed 1:9 model. You cannot see it too clearly, but I also applied a very fine carbon-fibre effect on the final finish.
I know that Rudy eventually left Lotus, and I think he went back to France and worked for Mavic I believe. (Or so I was told). Wonder where he is now.
) I used to be heavily involved with scale modelling. Shortly after Chris Boardman won Olympic Gold on the Lotus bike, I got aquainted with with Rudy Thomann who helped develop the bike at Lotus (before anybody says anything, I know Mike Burrows came up with the concept). Long story short .... Rudy would sometimes drop round after cycling home after working at Lotus (I lived not too far from the factory at Hethel) and I was eventually asked to build a 1:9 scale model of the Lotus Olympic bike. Not sure what happened to the model after it was delivered to Lotus, somebody told me that it was put on display somewhere in the offices.I did build one more identical to the commisioned model, for my own collection, which I still have.
Below are pics of the model in component form before assembly and finishing, and one of the completed 1:9 model. You cannot see it too clearly, but I also applied a very fine carbon-fibre effect on the final finish.
I know that Rudy eventually left Lotus, and I think he went back to France and worked for Mavic I believe. (Or so I was told). Wonder where he is now.
