Many legendary car brands have come and gone over the last century, particularly in the racing world. When Lola Cars ceased operations in 2012, it looked like another one had bitten the dust. But after finding new ownership under financier Till Bechtolsheimer a decade later and its first season in Formula E, the brand is looking towards the future again in rude health. I caught up with Bechtolsheimer to find out where he wanted to take the company.
What Is Lola Cars?
It’s hard to put your finger on exactly what Lola is most famous for, with its heritage across a wide range of racing formats. But what it should be best known for is the Ford GT40. “The fact the Ford GT40 started life as a Lola Mk6 never featured in the Ford versus Ferrari movie,” says Bechtolsheimer. “It was Lola delivering a project with Ford as a partner paid to do a job.” The Lola Mk6 was a technical milestone, with a mid-mounted Ford V8 motor and monocoque chassis innovation. Only three were built before Ford took the concept forward into the GT40, albeit without the original fiberglass body. This Lola contribution was conveniently left out of the otherwise brilliant movie about the GT40’s inception.
The Lola Formula E team is another partnership with a household brand, this time with Yamaha (alongside ABT). So far, the team has had limited success but is committed to the next Gen 4 version of the car. The future potential of electrification has been underlined by a project Lola recently undertook with its own Formula E team driver Lucas Di Grassi. Called the DGR-Lola, this EV racing car concept could theoretically lap the Monaco circuit 4.3 seconds faster than a Formula 1 car. Using a twin-turbine ground-effect system, as employed so effectively by the incredible McMurtry Speirling electric track car to beat the hill climb record at Goodwood, it’s a car that could stretch the physical endurance of drivers – if it ever gets built for real.
Bechtolsheimer himself is not from a motorsport background, but has an illustrious career in investment and finance. However, the company of which he is CEO, Arosa Capital Management, focuses on energy and alternative energy. He has also been karting since childhood and races sports cars at IMSA events in the USA, as well as enjoying historic racing with an Alfa Romeo Giulia Sprint GT.
This led inexorably to his Lola acquisition. “Lola was this amazing brand that anyone who’s been into motorsport for a lot more than the last 10 years will recognize and have appreciation for,” says Bechtolsheimer. “But I didn’t own a Lola until after I owned Lola.” He now has a growing collection, including a Lola T70 MkIIIB GT, which made a cameo appearance in the 1970 Steve McQueen film Le Mans; a Mk1; and a couple of Lolas built for the Formula Ford series.
Electrifying Lola Cars
With Lola’s heritage in combustion-powered racing, the choice to go electric in Formula E initially seems surprising. “You buy a brand like Lola, you feel a sense of responsibility to do right by that brand,” says Bechtolsheimer. However, he continues: “The goal was never just to support the historic Lolas out there. I want to do that, but Lola deserves to be brought back to the forefront of motorsport – to once again be recognized as a real innovation leader, which is a position it has held for over 60 years. Motorsport needs to entertain people, otherwise it loses its magic and its power, but it also needs to act as a platform for innovation, for the broader automotive and mobility space. These sectors are going through their biggest change ever, certainly since Ford’s Model T. There’s a massive focus on decarbonizing transportation.”
“Motorsport must maintain its relevance, so strategically we’re focusing our efforts on electrification, hydrogen and sustainable fuels and materials, for the simple reason that those are the three obvious areas for the broader automotive sector as well,” says Bechtolsheimer. He sees motorsports key value being that “the other issue that the automotive sector needs to grapple with while it’s trying to decarbonize is how you do that in a way that keeps your customer and your fan bases engaged and excited.”
“We’ve been exploring projects for all three of these core areas of strategic focus,” continues Bechtolsheimer. “The first we announced was the Formula E project, but we’re going to be announcing projects in those other buckets soon.” Although Lola’s first season in Formula E has had “highs and lows”, Bechtolsheimer remains positive and on mission. “When we joined Formula E with Yamaha, we were both clear that this is a multi-year campaign,” he says. “Our ambition is to become World Champions but that is a three-to-five-year goal. The first two years have been critical to build up a competitive Gen 4 campaign.”
“Coming into it, we didn’t have any data on any of the tracks, very limited data on the cars, no tire data, really none of the tools that that you need to be competitive in Formula E,” adds Bechtolsheimer. “We had to develop all this from scratch.” Lola acquired leading automotive data firm Paceteq in October 2024 to solidify its growth in this area. “The next youngest manufacturer in Formula E is Porsche, who just finished their 6th year in the championship, so we have a lot of catching up to do, but we have a plan.” Gen 4 of Formula E is the lynchpin of this strategy. “The Gen 4 campaign has always been the primary goal for our involvement in Formula E. When we go into Gen 4, it’s going to be even more spectacular because the sheer performance of the cars is going to get very spicy.”
Back To Lola Cars’ Endurance Roots?
Bechtolsheimer is also interested in taking Lola back into endurance racing, where it has a rich history. This could involve hydrogen-powered propulsion. “The Automobile Club de l’Ouest [the organization behind Le Mans] has been very public about its views that hydrogen has a really important role to play in endurance racing,” he says. “But we’re looking at other ways into endurance racing outside hydrogen as well.”
Sustainable fuel is also gaining favor in motorsport, with Formula 1 switching to an Aramco product for 2026. “There’s a lot of progress on sustainable fuels and motorsport is at the forefront of it,” says Bechtolsheimer. “The price per gallon is less relevant in motorsport than it is to your daily consumer.” While he sees battery electric as almost unbeatable for urban transport and last mile deliveries, other forms of transport, such as aviation or marine travel, favor alternative solutions. “There’s also a huge existing fleet as well that is going to take decades to age out. The only way to decarbonize those is through more sustainable fuels. It’s unlikely that we’re going to go to 100% synthetic fuels for your everyday drivers across the board globally, because of the cost involved, but you can increase the bio or synthetic content and start to decarbonize those fuels for the existing fleet.”
For anyone who loves classic cars, the impending dominance of BEVs could relegate the beauty of automotive history to the museum. Sustainable fuel would allow these to remain on the road with a lower, even net zero carbon footprint. “I’m not just talking about classic cars, I’m talking about the Valkyrie with a V12,” says Bechtolsheimer. “Do we want a world where those types of cars are no longer being developed? What’s wrong with having those cars if we can decarbonize the fuel that they’re running on?”
The hypercar market hasn’t embraced full electrification, and those who can afford such vehicles won’t be too worried about the high price of sustainable fuels. Indeed, despite having Mate Rimac as its CEO, Bugatti’s most recent launch, the Tourbillon, is a hybrid, while Lamborghini is making fantastic hybrid cars like the Temerario. “We’re two years into the development of a sustainable fuel project,” says Bechtolsheimer. “We’ve broken some new ground. Lola’s job as a leader in motorsport technology is to innovate in a way that the industry is interested in and focused on. That is decarbonizing in a way that’s still exciting and keeps people engaged with these brands.”
No Lola Cars For Public Roads – Yet
However, Bechtolsheimer doesn’t currently plan on bringing out Lola’s own road cars. Instead, he sees a future of collaboration with existing automakers. “Constructors and engineering groups have always played a really important role in motorsport,” he says. “They’re the way that the car companies go racing. They partner with a constructor or an engineering group that’s focused on motorsport to help them deliver that project.”
This is the way Bechtolsheimer sees Lola’s potential for road cars. “There are a few motorsport-focused groups that are massive brands – McLaren and Lotus,” he says. However, he sees Lola “getting involved in a road car program that’s more akin to the Renault Clio Williams back in the day where you’re working with an OEM”. Lola isn’t planning to develop a hypercar for a million dollars. “That’s not the direction I want to take Lola in. We want to remain focused on motorsport. Our role is to innovate for the benefit of the broader automotive sector and that can include us working on other people’s road going projects.”
The performance of motorsports and increasingly strict safety regulations have narrowed the overlap between racing and road vehicles, which is likely to keep Lola’s focus mostly on the track. One of Bechtolsheimer’s favorite cars that he owns personally is a Talbot-Lago T150C. “It ran in Le Mans in 1936, 37, 38 and then again in 45,” he says. “It did about 20 Grand Prix where they would take the headlights and the cycle wings off and run it as a Grand Prix car. But I can drive it on the country roads, on a Sunday afternoon and you just can’t beat that. You couldn’t do that in a modern Grand Prix car. I love that era.” We’re unlikely to see that time coming back, but having a brand as illustrious as Lola Cars return to competition keeps some of the spirit alive, at least.