"I raced one"

This versatile veteran won as he pleased in the unique Chevron B5, and preferred BRM to BMW power…

“I bought the car in early 1969; at that time it had an 1880cc BRM engine. Anyway, through [BRM development engineer] Cyril Emburey, I got hold of a 2-litre centre-port engine and a six-speed ’box. With the sort of power it was putting out – over 250bhp – it was hard not to look good. I was pretty ignorant about chassis set-up and generally drove around problems, but I won
more often than not. At that time I used to drive to circuits in my GT40 road car and then race the Chevron!

“I remember doing the Martini 300 Trophy meeting at Silverstone that year. I’d decided not to do the main race in the belief that the Chevron wouldn’t be competitive. Well, it rained; I won the support race and lapped consistently quicker than the car which won the main event [Chris Craft’s Lola T70].

“I later took an ex-works B8 in part-exchange, but it wasn’t as good as the B5. Its BMW engine was somewhat agricultural but the car handled beautifully and was very stable in the wet. I also drove the JCB B8 on occasion, by which time I was drifting more into historics.”