The most curious and interesting thing I saw today at the Geelong Revival: a 2011 Lotus F1 car?

Seems to be a 2011 anyway; the nose and roll hoop indicate that. The front wing seems neither 2010 nor 2011 though, or even race‑spec. The livery is very much 2014, and it’s got Kamui Kobayashi’s name on it at least three times, even though he was with Sauber during 2011.

Some quick searches on the Internet show that a Lotus T128 was on Craigslist in Tennessee just this past August. Supposedly, it was an actual Grand Prix car converted to a show car.

The P Zero tyres have been marked for “show use only”, but the steering wheel does have a FIA sticker on it. So those seem to support that story.

The photos on Craigslist showed a car still with 2013 Caterham colours. So if this really is the same one, then obviusly, somebody’s gone to some length to update it over the last couple of months, presumably without any help from the factory since that’s long gone. And then they had to fly it to the opposite side of the world.

I wish there was someone I could talk to about it, but whoever was responsible for it didn’t seem to be around at the time. I would’ve loved to know what the history was, and how this ended up here in Geelong of all places.

Still: closest I’ve ever got to a Formula One car, so that’s frickin’ cool. All the cooler that it was one from the same year as Freaky Sidepods.