Motor racing driver, engineer and race car constructor, sportscar manufacturer. Anthony Colin Bruce Chapman was born in Richmond,London, the son of Stan and Mary Chapman who owned the Railway Hotel in Hornsey, North London. He studied engineering at university where he also learned to fly. He joined the RAF as a pilot. When he left the RAF he became a member of the 750 Motor Club, a group of enthusiastic engineers who liked to build their own cars. His first home-built car was based on a 1930 Austin Seven and he drove it in trials as well as circuit racing. By then he was working at the British Aluminium Company where his interest in aerodynamics grew. By 1952 he had left to start his own company Lotus Engineering Company to start to build alloy-bodied copies of his racing cars. A long series of cars were then produced over the years, each model being more innovative than the last and Chapman gained a tremendous reputation as a clever designer as well as the feiry and emotion boss of Team Lotus. The first Lotus victory was at the Monaco GP in 1960 when Stirling Moss beat the dominant Ferraris, followed by the US GP the following year when Innes Ireland won for Team Lotus. World Champion Jim Clark was a person favourite of his, and won the World Championship in 1963 and 1965. In 1970 Jochen Rindt lost his life in a Lotus 72 but became the only posthumous World Champion. Further World Championships came the teams way in the 70s when Chapman developed ground effect cars and active suspension. He became involved in the John Delorean scandle when millions of pounds of government money went missing but died unexpectedly of a heart attack, aged only 54yrs, before he could appear in court. His only appearance as a driver in F1 was at the 1956 French GP when he took the place of another Vanwall driver who had had to drop out. Although he recorded 5th fastest in practice, his car experienced brake problems and unfortunately rammed team mate Hawthorn. Only one car could be repaired in time so Chapman was unable to race.