1968 Chevron B8

This car, Lot 349, sold for $202,129 (£168,750), including buyer’s premium, at Silverstone Auctions’ Warwickshire, U.K., sale on February 24, 2023.

Rising from complete obscurity in a lock-up garage near Manchester in northern England during the early 1960s, Chevron exploded on the racing scene in the 1970s, establishing itself as a major force in sports racing, GT and formula series. At least six drivers who were entwined with Chevron went on to become Formula One world champions. Though many brilliant people were involved, Chevron was the brainchild of Derek Bennett, a natural engineer and gifted racer who was the nexus of everything Chevron. Unfortunately, he was killed in a hang-gliding accident in March 1978, and the company collapsed soon thereafter. It is a longish story, but the B8 is where it all started.

Early success

Bennett came of age in the late 1950s, racing cars of his own design and construction. By the early 1960s there were enough people asking him for replicas of his design that he decided to chance becoming a full constructor. His initial thoughts were to build formula racers, but the competition from established makes such as Lotus, Cooper and Brabham made success unlikely. The Lotus 7, a minimalist, cycle-fender sports car introduced in 1957, had proven so successful and heavily raced in the U.K. that an entire class was set up for them (and similar race cars). It was called “Clubman” and filled amateur grids throughout the country. Bennett decided that this would be a good place to start.

“Derek Bennett Engineering” doesn’t exactly have marketing panache, so he needed a company name. Looking around, he happened upon a road-sign display and saw a Chevron example. It stuck in his head; he now had a brand. Through a combination of good construction, excellent driving and luck, every racer Derek had built had won its first race. The new Clubman kept the tradition and Chevrons became known for being “fast out of the box.”

Next level

The Clubmans were successful, both for Chevron and on track, but Bennett had far greater dreams. GT and formula racing were where the big boys played. Developing a small-displacement GT that could win in English racing against the dominant Lotus Elan 26Rs was the obvious next step. He drew some sketches and built a model, and when a client put down a £500 deposit (against a £2,000 finished price) the project was a go. The approach was standard English racer for the time: mild steel space frame, mid-engine, Hewland transaxle, production-car parts where they made sense to keep costs down. The fiberglass body was Derek’s own design.

Given that the first was sold, there was no purpose in building just one, so a second chassis was laid down as a development car, and within a month another client signed on, so the initial batch numbered three. The first was aimed directly at the Lotus Elan and its successor Lotus 47, so it used a 1,600-cc Lotus Twin Cam engine. For his car Derek wanted a bit more grunt, so he settled on a 2-liter BMW M10 engine that weighed only a bit more than the Ford but made about 20 more horsepower and a lot more torque. The third car got BMW power as well.

It is useful to note that these cars were built for English club racing, not International FIA competition. Chevron was still a tiny operation building a car or two at a time. The GT’s debut race was the TC 1600 at Oulton Park (the local track) in July 1966, and it won easily, followed two weeks later by a class win and 2nd overall (to David Piper’s Ferrari 250 LM) in the much bigger leagues of the Crystal Palace circuit. Derek’s car was barely finished in time and — without windshield wipers in the rain — finished 4th and won the 2-liter class. Chevron had arrived.

The next step was joining the big leagues of FIA international competition. The problem was that the “pure racing” class was prototypes, with 3-liter engines and formidable competition. Group 4 (production GT cars) had a 2-liter class but required a 50-car minimum production to qualify. Chevron was going to have to step way up to do this. Fortunately, at that time the FIA was more concerned with getting cars on its grids than with enforcing rules, so creative accounting was allowed. Chevron never built even close to 50 B8s but were allowed in Group 4 and did well against Porsche’s 906, Lotus’ Type 47 Europa, and on tight tracks with wet weather, even the big dogs like Ford GT40 and Ferrari 250 LM. The B8 was and remains a giant killer.

Strong value

These are cool racers, easy to drive and quick, but they never were and still aren’t very collectible. It’s a tube-frame fiberglass sports racer with a roof, not really a Gran Turismo in any real sense. You could never drive one on the street. Though pretty, they are about as exotic as dirt. The BMW engine is from a 2002, the transaxle standard Hewland, the interior doesn’t exist. The good news is that parts are easy to find and relatively cheap; if you shuck an engine or rip the gears out of the transaxle, it’s an inconvenience, not a crisis. Best of all, a good driver can run with or ahead of cars worth five or 10 times as much. People in the paddock won’t stop to genuflect at your car, but hey, a Chevron B8 is a lot of fun for not too much money.

As with most racing cars, there are a few special ones with important history and excellent provenance that command a market premium, but that isn’t this car. Our subject has zero contemporary race history but appears to be well restored and prepared as a vintage racer. It’s a pure weapon, at the low end of the value range, but as such was fairly bought and sold. ♦

(Introductory description courtesy of Silverstone Auctions.)