This is what Jannie van Aswegen, owner of 3 of the 5 racing Lolettes, wrote to a friend who reported in a Forum:
Lolette No 1......... as I will number it was built during 1961/1962 and the chassis was basically a Protea Chassis which was built for Eric by John Meyers who built the Protea cars . Eric then did the mechanical and the body work himself . The front suspension was a Ford Thames van solid axle that was cut in half and pivoted in the middle like a Lotus 6 . At the end of these pivoting axles he fitted Jaguar disc brakes . The rear axle was from a 1937 Ford saloon which was cut of next to the diff center and made into a De Dion back axle . The engine was from a early Chev . Corvette and was 283 cub inches [4.6 liters ] the gearbox was from a Alfa Romeo as the early Corvettes was only 3 speed and the early Alfas had 4 speed before going to 5 speeds . The body was hand made with Fiberglass from a cement mold . The second photo on the E mail link in spider form is what the car started its life like . This photo was taken in 1962 at Killarney in Cape Town . Eric then shipped the car to the U.K. at the end of 1962 and competed in the U.K. with the car for the 1963 season . During this period he was staying and traveling with Bobby Olthoff in the U.K. who was with the Wilment team driving the Cobra and Eric tagged along with his Lolette . The car was also constantly improved and updated by Eric during the time in the U.K. the first thing he did was to change the front suspension to fully independent by using Alfa components but still keeping the Jaguar brakes . He was also not very happy getting wet in the U.K. during races and had the roof fitted to the car with a different back end . These modifications was done in Allimunimum . Eric then returned to South Africa in 1964 with the changed car and raced it in sports car events locally.He then entered it in the 9 hour race of that year with his friend Frank Rundle as co driver . They started well from the Le Mans start but early in the race the gearbox jammed in fourth gear and that was the reason for all the off s during the race as well as the bad end result .
Eric decided to then get involved in Hot Rod racing and sold the Lolette to a chap in the East Rand without the Engine . In the mid 1980 s I found the chassis with suspension in Florida [South Africa ] and did a deal with the then owner by swapping some wheels I had for the remains . It laid in my Garage for a while before I gave it to Peter Du Toit for free to restore and this is now the car that he races from time to time at Zwartkops . Unfortunately the car has not been restored to its original condition.
After building this car Eric got involved after a visit to the States in producing the first Beach buggies in South Africa called Lolette buggies , he also started to produce locally all sorts of special parts for the buggies like Lollete cast split wheels ,inlet manifolds for IDA Weber carbs , steering wheels , Alli tappet covers . ect . This became his main business and how many of the buggies was built I don't know but Eric won the roof of Africa Rally in one of them .
Lolette No 2 ........Was a car that combined ideas and features that Eric had learned about during his racing in the U.K. and his visit to the States . He admired both Chapman and Jim Hall for their engineering skills and one would see this come through in the cars that Eric built , even the Lolette No 1 had some aspects that was copied from the front engine Chaparrals . The second Lolette was rear engined with a Chevy V8 with full independent suspension all round like Lotus ,using big Girling racing brakes and alli calipers .The gearbox Eric copied from the Chaparral ,it was his own transaxel casting with the internals off a Chevy powerglide two speed automatic gearbox inside . The body was a work of art made from Allimunium and based on the shape of the Lotus 30 . Eric now stood back from driving himself and had Peter De Klerk drive the car . As beautiful as this car was so bad was the handling. Between Eric and Peter they tried to sort the car out over a period of a year and a half but never really managed to get it to be competitive . Eventually they gave up and Eric sold the car to a person in Krugersdorp who wanted to build a road car from it . I traced the car in the late 1980 s and bought it from this chap . I later sold it to Brain Tyler who inturn sold it to Bunny Wentzel who at present is busy restoring the car .
Lolette No 3............. Was a rear engine Hot Rod that Eric built based on a replica Brabham BT 7 chassis that he got from Barry Neunborn as Barry had abandoned a formula one project when the formula changed from 1.5 liter to 3 liter . Eric used this chassis and fitted offset suspension to it based on what Chapman had done to the Lotus 29 Indy car . He fitted a standard Chev V8 engine with a four barrel carb and a In and Out box of his own fabrication as also some Lolette wheels which was the same as the ones made for the Buggies he was selling .The car also used Brabham F ONE body panels. He got a local German driver called Jurgie Bauer to drive the car at the Wembley oval track against the American produced CAE hot rods . This car was unbelievably successful and was eventually stopped from racing by the hot rod association . The car was sold to a fellow hot rodder in Krugersdorp called Ben Venter from whom I bought it in the mid 1970 s . I then sold it to a person in Pretoria called Kas Els . I have recently tried to trace the car again but have not been successful up to now .
Eric then extended his Buggy business by developing a local kit car for a VW beetle chassis by taking a mould of Dr Davie Gous,s Porsche RSK 62 spider,s nose section and a mould from Doug Serruriers Lola T70 s rear end and combining it with the roof of a VW Karman Gia to produce a very nice Lolette road car . Again he sold complete cars as well as kits ,but how many I cannot say .
Lolette No 4.............The above project let to a sports car that Eric built for him and Frank Rundel to race again in the 1969 9 hour race . It was called a Lolette Porsche spider and used the body as described above but with no roof . It was powered by a four cylinder Porsche Engine and it used a spaceframe chassis . The car finished as the first South African car home that year . The car was sold to a lady in Angola after the race and never heard of again although every now and then there are rumors that the car is in Namibia however I could not find it up to now .
Lolette No 5..............This was a small well built rear engine dragster powered by a modified VW air-cooled engine of 1800 cc through a VW gearbox this car constantly won the small dragster class with times of between 10 to 11 seconds for the quarter mile [on the reef which is 6000 feet above see level] . I later bought this car from Eric directly and change the Power unit to an NSU RO80 engine onto the VW gearbox . The car ran constant 10 second times with the standard NSU engine . I then turbo charged the engine but had a lot of problems with it as we then had to run Methanol fuel by law ,due to fuel restrictions . The Methanol did not suit the wankel engine but I once managed to break into the 9 seconds with the car . I later sold it to a fellow drag racer and have never seen the car again .
Eric then built himself a yacht and set sail around the world . He eventually got to Australia where he has been living since the 1980 s.
