The
Lova was a Belgian machine constructed by Jef Dujourie at Louvain (hence
the derivation of its name, the Latin name for Louvain was Lovanium).
The first Lova was a 500cc car raced by Dujourie himself in Belgian hillclimbs
and in 1960 he built a front-engined DKW powered F Junior which, despite
André Pilette having an outing at Monthléry, proved uncompetitive.
A new chassis was constructed, this time moving the DKW engine to the
rear and was driven by the wonderfully named Willy Vroomen, a Dutchman
from Antwerp and Jean-Claude Franck, a 21 year old from Louvain. Results
were still disappointing and even the adoption of a Holbay-tweaked Ford
engine did not noticeably improve matters.
Vroomen took part in several early F3 races, where the Lova reverted to
a DKW engine in what would seem to be the F Junior car converted to F3.
It only ever appeared to run towards the back of a handful of races and
then vanished as the racing became more serious.
Thanks to Stefan Örnerdal
for additional information. |