Mo Nunn the Ensign team owner had been a Lotus F3 driver in 1966 and the Dave Baldwin designed chassis was in many ways a lightweight Lotus F1, which Ronnie Peterson wanted to test in 1975 out of frustration with his old 72 and which could have been used by Colin Chapman had he not not decided to concentrate on developing chassis which would use ground effect technology, the Lotus 77 design for 1976 which was in many ways a test vehicle for the development of concepts, including the de facto legalisation of technology like plastic sliding skirts, introduced on Andretti's 77 from the 1976 Canadian Grand Prix, that would be used in future Lotus wing cars the Lotus 78 and Lotus 79.