Description:

MG Lola EX 264 Chassis #HU05 BO54O

• 0 Mile Rebuild
• Le Mans Winner (LMP2 Class)
• Very competitive LMP2 car
• Great spares package
• Ready to go

Price: £295,000

MG EX264, chassis #HU05, is one of the most successful MG sportscars of all time. Not only did it dominate the LMP2 class at the 2006 Le Mans 24 Hours, but it claimed championship honours in the Le Mans Series the following year. The car even has an overall podium in the LMS to its name. 

The EX264 had its origins in MG factory’s assault on the Le Mans 24 Hours in 2001-02. MG-Rover had been sold by BMW to a consortium that wanted to promote the MG name in competition. The MG EX257, designed and built by Lola Cars International for the new lightweight LMP675 class, was just one of the projects undertaken as it sought to re-establish the sporting credentials of the marque. 

The factory programme ended after Le Mans 2002, but Lola built customer versions of the EX257, known as the B01/60 and two of the ex-works cars raced on in private hands. Mike Newton bought one of these cars to compete in the new Le Mans Endurance Series for 2004 with the 

Ray Mallock Limited organisation in which he had become a shareholder. 

Newton was a fan of the MG brand and on the obsolescence of the EX257 in Europe at the end of 2004, he decided to continue his relationship with the brand. He purchased one of Lola’s new B05/40 LMP2 designs and upgraded it with key components from the outgoing LMP675 car. He also did a deal for the car to be branded as an MG and take one of its EX — for ‘experimental’ — type numbers, the car being re-homologated with Le Mans organiser the Automobile Club de l’Ouest. 

The EX264 – 257 plus seven for the #7 race number that RML ran in the LMES — incorporated the hubs and brake calipers of the earlier car and ran a 3.4-litre Judd XV engine branded as an MG unit. Engine Developments, builder of Judd powerplants, was also responsible for the engines for MG’s British Touring Car Championship campaigns at the time. 

It made sense to run the components from the EX257 on the later car, reckons RML’s race operations director Phil Barker. 

“The hubs and calipers were far superior to those on the B05/40, which were built for a customer rather than a factory car,” he says. “If you were looking for theoretical advantages, they undoubtedly gave us something.” 

The first EX264, chassis #HU03, claimed LMP2 honours at Le Mans on its debut in 2005 with Newton driving alongside long-time partner Tommy Erdos and former MG factory driver Warren Hughes. They won a race of attrition in which only three cars were classified in class, despite sitting in the gravel at the Ford Chicane with two hours to go with a broken rear wishbone. 

Newton and Erdos also came within a point of claiming the LMES LMP2 crown. They were on course for the title with second in class at the Istanbul series finale when a late spin for the third-placed car in wet conditions allowed the eventual champions, Chamberlain Synergy Motorsport, to move up a position and steal the title. 

RML built up a second EX264 around a new Lola tub, chassis #HU05, for the 2006 season with Advanced Engine Research’s inline four-cylinder P07 turbo engine. The events of the 2005 season had convinced the team that it was time to make the switch from the normally-aspirated Judd V8. 

“We’d seen that we were at a disadvantage to the Lolas running the AER engine in 2005,” recalls Barker. “With the turbo engine you had torque almost immediately out of a corner, whereas the Judd had to screaming up towards 10,000rpm before the power came in. It was a no-brainer. 

“We’d been right on the knuckle of the weight 

limit with the Judd, but the AER was a smaller, lighter unit which allowed us to strategically put ballast where we wanted it.” 

Newton and Erdos claimed a victory at Donington Park in August with fourth place overall in what was now known simply as the Le Mans Series. The second place in which the car was lying at the finale at Jarama was going to be more than enough to give Newton and Erdos the title. 

Oil pump failure with just seven minutes of the six-hour race remaining resulted in a non-finish. Once again the title slipped through RML’s fingers by the narrowest of margins, this time just two points. 

RML did, however, maintain its grip on the Le Mans LMP2 winner’s trophy, and an ironclad one at that. Newton, Erdos and new co-driver Andy Wallace, the winner of the race outright with Jaguar in 1988, dominated the class on the way to a 17-lap victory aboard EX264 #HU05. 

The MG was barely ever behind in class and ran as high as fifth place overall. The car made it home eighth in the final classification, only alternator and battery cable problems preventing the car from making it home in the top six. 

“Everyone was saying you’ll never get an AER engine to win Le Mans, but we did,” says Barker. “It was a tight installation, but if you did it properly it was always very reliable.” 

The MG EX264 finally chalked up an LMS title in 2007 after the near misses of the previous two seasons. Newton and Erdos claimed class victories at the Nurburgring and Spa during the summer. Added to a second position first time out at Monza and then fourth at Silverstone, it was easily enough to give them the crown with a round left to run. 

The car claimed a first overall podium in the course of its run to the title. Newton and Erdos led from start to finish to end up third at Spa, only a lap behind the second-place Pescarolo-Judd 01 LMP1 car. 

There was no repeat of class victory at Le Mans, however. Just over 60 minutes were lost to repairs after Wallace crashed in the Porsche Curves at the start of the fifth hour. Engine problems, which could almost certainly be traced back to drag back to the pits after the accident, put the car out of the race in the 19th hour. 

EX264 #HU05 became the EX265 for 2008. Lola had introduced an aerodynamic upgrade for its LMP2 contender ahead of the the start of the season and RML adopted a new type number to suit. The car completed the first two rounds of the LMS and then made its third and final Le Mans start before being replaced by the EX265C based on Lola’s B08/80 P2 coupe. 

That wasn’t the end of the competition career of this famous car. It was sold to Barry Gates in 2010 and completed a further seven LMS races in EX265 specification that season and the next run by the RLR Motorsport squad. The best result of the car’s Indian Summer was a fifth in class at Paul Ricard at the start of 2011. 

EX264 #HU05 achieved a lot during its frontline career. 

“You have to remember that Mike was a relative newcomer to that level of motorsport, and no youngster either,” says Barker. “To win Le Mans and the championship in such a short period was quite remarkable, really,”