Gerry Judah: Lotus

Six historic Lotus Formula 1 cars were incorporated in a striking sculpture by artist Gerry Judah, taking centre stage at the recent Goodwood Festival of Speed, Britain's largest car culture event. The 28-metre tall sculpture was the 16th created by the British artist for the Festival of Speed, an annual event held in the grounds of Goodwood House in West Sussex.

In 2012, the Goodwood-featured car brand was Lotus. A 3-D infinity loop was designed, resembling the grandest, most ambitious Scalextric track ever imagined. The track itself is a triangular section of 6mm flat sheet metal with a continuous curved surface painted white. Multiple cranes were used to erect the installation and place six significant Lotus cars onto its surface. The cars, which were loaned by Classic Team Lotus and the Lotus F1 Team, included a green and yellow Type 32B, the car in which Jim Clark won the 1965 Tasman Series in Australia and New Zealand, and a red-and-white Type 49, in which Graham Hill raced to the crown. The other cars were a JPS-liveried Type 72, in which Emerson Fittipaldi became the sport's youngest champion; a black-and-gold '79 responsible for Mario Andretti's world title; a yellow Lotus 99T driven by Ayrton Senna; and the current Lotus grand prix car as driven by Kimi Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean.

"What you see in the structure is the track, but inside it is 98% empty space," explains Gerry Juddah. "In automobile terms, this would be a monocoque body, a tribute to the legendary designer and Lotus founder Colin Chapman's introduction of monocoque chassis construction to automobile racing. What we have here is a technique for building freeform shapes. In the future, we expect that lots of structures will be built like this, from bridges and large span buildings, to roller coasters, but before that we will be building some even more spectacular sculptures."

With the Festival over, the sculpture is being dismantled and will be brought to Lotus's Norfolk headquarters.