1977 Chevron B40 Ex-Fred Opert Racing

The story of Chevron Cars Ltd is one of success and tragedy; founded in 1965 by Derek Bennett, an intuitive but largely self-taught engineer and talented amateur racing driver. As a young man, he fell in with the racing scene in the North of England, graduating to building, maintaining and driving racing cars for himself and other local enthusiasts. By 1965, with sufficient demand for his cars, Bennett was able to establish himself as a constructor, starting his business and the Chevron marque in School Street, Salford.

Despite Bennett's untimely death in a hang-gliding accident in 1978, Chevron continued to grow, concentrating mostly upon Formula 3, Formula 2 and Formula Atlantic, with minor variants of the same basic design. Nearly every Formula 1 driver of the 1970s drove a Chevron in their early careers, including Niki Lauda.

After the success of the B35 in Formula 2 and the Chevron B34 in Formula Atlantic and Formula 3 in 1976, Bennett designed an evolutionary series of cars for 1977: the B38 for F3, B39 for Atlantic and B40 for F2. The new cars' bodywork was similar to B34/B35 series but with a revised nose, a small Perspex screen at the top of the cockpit bodywork and an air intake on the engine cover. Suspension was again entirely orthodox, with double wishbones at the front, and transverse links, bottom wishbones and twin radius rods at the back.

The B40 was a front runner in the European Championship, being wholly competitive with its rivals: the March 772, Martini MK22 and the Ralt RT1. Although the B40 only won twice in 1977 – Keke Rosberg at Enna-Pergusa (driving #B40-77-06) in July and Lamberto Leoni in a Ferrari-engined chassis at Misano (driving #B40-77-04) in August - it was competitive everywhere as five second places showed, utilising both Hart and BMW engines, as a default.

The car presented here is a 1977 Chevron B40 (chassis #B40-77-05) which was delivered new to Fred Opert Racing. Its first outing was at Silverstone on the 6th March 1977 powered by a Hart 420R. It was driven by Wink Bancroft who had trouble adapting to European racing and failed to qualify for six of his 12 races. He also raced the car in two Shellsport G8 races in August and September. The car was raced by Austrian Hans Royer in the final F2 round at Donington Park, with sponsorship from Jim Bean, and subsequently Werner Ruckelshausen drove it in Austrian national events in 1978. All told, B40-77-05 is documented as having competed in eleven F2 recorded races.

In more recent times, the car has been with diligent privateer owners, amongst them, Chris Lillington-Price and our vendor, who have maintained and campaigned B40-77-05 properly. It is currently race-ready, with a MSA/FIA Historic Technical Passport valid until 31st December 2028, having benefitted from a full rebuild by Retro Track & Air (UK) Ltd of Gloucestershire in 2018, with only limited use since, and its Hart 420 engine has covered only 350 miles since a full rebuild (costing £15,815, invoice in history file) by expert Geoff Richardson of GR Engineering in Cambridgeshire. The car is accompanied by a spare wheel set, a spare splitter and silencer.

This is a fantastic opportunity to acquire one of just three factory cars (i.e. all were run out of the Chevron factory) supplied new to Fred Opert Racing (the other cars being B40-77-06 and B40-77-08 – driven by Alain Prost and Tiff Needell). Offered without reserve, this historic F2 car with real provenance, is not to be missed.