Elliot Moss rolled backed the years at the Classic Team Lotus Festival, by wearing his father’s instantly recognisable helmet and race suit, when he demonstrated a Lotus 18 race car along with other historic Lotus Formula 1 cars. The likeness was uncanny, especially when he donned Stirling’s original goggles, which date back to his fathers hey day.

This was Elliot’s second time ever out on a race track, and on an unfamiliar one at that, so you could forgive him for being nervous, not that it showed as he lead the first of demonstration runs out onto the Snetterton circuit. The likeness was further reinforced by a wave to the crowd, that emulated his fathers, as he passed the pit wall in front of a track side audience of some 15,000 who had queued for hours to come into the circuit from the early morning to see this once in a lifetime gathering of Lotus Formula 1 race cars.

Clive Chapman's, the founder of Classic Team Lotus, original intention of gathering together three of Jim Clark's classic Lotus racing cars mushroomed into the Classic Team Lotus Festival featuring examples of almost every race worthy Lotus Formula 1 car ever produced. Lotus Racing also brought along the current Formula 1 cars, which ran installation laps for Valencia Grand Prix, taking place this coming weekend, on the track at Snetterton in front of the huge crowd. Heikki Kovalainen, Jarno Trulli, and Fairuz Fauzy, the current Lotus Formula 1 team drivers, also signed autographs, answered questions and had their photographs taken with the competition-winning youngsters.

All 35 Lotus Formula 1 grand prix cars were wheeled onto the grid for a unique photocall with Clive, alongside his mother Hazel Chapman, echoing one done with his father at the peak of the team’s success. Clive said of the cars gathered together “It is important to remember that so many of these cars changed Formula 1. When ever they were unveiled, it was a landmark. More than half of the Team Lotus cars turned Formula 1 on its head.”

Many of the cars gathered together on the grid were then demonstrated on track with Jarno Trulli in the 1982 Lotus Type 91, Heikki Kovalainen in the JPS liveried Type 77 and Lotus Racing test driver Fairuz Fauzy in a Type 72. Elliot demonstrated a Lotus 18 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first Lotus Formula 1 win when Stirling won the 1960 Monaco Grand Prix in a Rob Walker Lotus 18.

Once he had compared notes with Mike Gascoyne, the Lotus Chief Technical Officer, who had reveled in his drive of a Lotus Type 49 on track, Elliot, with tongue in cheek, said “I now know that I can do his job (Stirling’s) better than he can do mine (chef)!”.

The Snetterton crowd were also able to enjoy a full programme of racing including the Elise Trophy before witnessing the loading of the current Lotus Racing Formula 1 cars onto their transporter and sending them on their way to the next round of the Formula 1 World Championship in Valencia.