*** Lotus 49 history ***
Some people question the validity of having the Lotus 49 in the game due to the fact that it did not compete in all the races of the 1967 season, yet the same question is not applied to the Honda RA300 which appeared in a lot less races than the Lotus (possibly due to the inferior performance of the Honda), The GPLEA Lotus 49 represents the car used at Zandvoort and Spa, mine complements this by representing the car used at Bugatti au Mans, Silverstone, Nürburgring, Mosport Park, Monza, Watkins Glen, and Mexico City, taking the pole at each venue. (for a more comprhensive history i suggest you have a look at the GPLEA retro by Gerald Swan.)

*** GPL patch history ***
I was asked by Peter Dunham if i could add a better steering wheel to the 1968 Lotus he was making.  IMNO what this car realy needed was a clear screen, as the the version without was not used in 1968.  After adding clear screens in place of the painted one, i decided to further develope the car to better represent the 1967 car.  Changes include lowered cockpit (inside and out) with a lower drivng position and edited front suspension (inside view), slightly raised and widened nose. Area in front of screen lowered to match in with cockpit and screen. Screen now reshaped with cutout underneath. plus some remapping of textures and of course new textures and wheels.  The car is very loosly based on the GPLEA Lotus 3do as modified by Thorsten Theiroff.

*** Road wheels ***
The wheels that come with this patch are based on the GPLEA Lotus 3D wheels as originally made by Guru Phil. The textures for these wheels are similar to those I made for the 68 Lotus but these have different rears, modified front wheel 3dos to give a shallower dish as the deep dished ones where not used in 1967, and the other 3dos have been edited to use my firstone treads.  If you do not wish to use these wheels the GPLEA ones (both 3D and non 3D should work although i have not tested them, and I will be making some of my own low res and non 3D).

*** Installation ***
Preperation before instalation: do a clearout of your lotus folder, leaving just the lotus.dat file, then do a fresh install aof the GPLEA Lotus 1.02 with 3D wheels, followed by the GPLSF Lotus 3 dash (follow the instructions to get either high or low res) and test run GPL to make sure everything is working OK. After backing up your lotus folder (in case you wish to return to the early model lotus 49), simply unzip the contents of this zip file into the lotus directory, allowing them to overwrite the files therein.

*** Options ***
By default this car comes with padded cockpit insides (I will be making some historically corect non-padded one later), if you wish to not use these copy the files lotinsid.mip and lotinsir.mip from your backed up GPLEA Lotus.

The car will come with Johnson on the sides of the number 4 texture, if your name is not Johnson or you do not wish to use this the plain_lot4.mip can be used for a plain un-named car, or if you wish you can use WinMip to put your name on the name_lot4.mip, which has plain red name plates on it.

The AI cars included are Clark, Hill, and Giancarlo Baghetti (i like to have 3 of each car, exepting the Honda, with the AI to give an even spread of colour in offline races).  Baghetti is unique amost F1 drivers as the only one to have won his first GP, beating the Porche of Dan Gurney by 1 tenth of a second (1961 French GP at Reims in a privatly entered Ferrari). He competed in sports cars from the late 50s having much success. In 1967 he raced the Lotus at Monza, but retired due to engine failure. Baghetti is one of the drivers in the forgotten drivers patch available at the pits.

*** Bugs ***
the GPLEA Lotus had a very small amount of clipping in front of the screen (due to the original GPL Lotus having a flat top), this has been made slightly worse in my car due to the further changes tothe shape, there is also a small amount of clipping with the transparent screens. I hope this will not spoil your enjoyment of the car. it is my intention to try and cure it with any later versions of this car.

*** Other stuff ***
Build time = too long don't ask :o)

If you wish to use this 3do as part of another car set, you may, all I ask is that you ask me and credit me and the GPLEA for the original work on the 3do.

Happy racing

Bruce M. Johnson

bruce.johnson@ntlworld.com