 Philippe raced a Lotus 7 in 1963 and 1964, and in 1965 was asked by Colin Chapman to be his "design team" at Team Lotus.Philippe and Chapman first redesigned the Lotus 39, then produced the Lotus 43, the classic Lotus 49, the ground-breaking Lotus 72 as well as the Lotus 56 turbine Indy cars.In 1972, Philippe left Lotus and went to work for Parnelli Jones's USAC team, designing the Cosworth-Parnelli VPJ4 for F1, which was raced in by Mario Andretti.