I don't think this has come up before, but apologies if it has....!
On
http://www.gtv6-156gta.be, there's a PDF of an article and track test from a 1996 issue of Auto Italia magazine which has a track test of the former Rob Kirby 'John West' GTV6, by then much modified (lightweight panels, 3.3 litre V6 etc) for Alfa club racing. It gives some background to how the whole deal and the car came about- basically it was sponsored by the government of Alaska!
According to the article, after a serious food poisoning scare involving canned salmon in 1982, the state of Alaska put money into a UK marketing campaign to help rebuild sales, via the British Association of Canned Food Importers & Distributors.
After a 1983 TV ad campaign etc, there was about £40k left over, and BACFID were persuaded by a director of John West and Alfa Romeo Dealer Team's Roberto Giordanelli (author of the article) that a BTCC campaign and associated promotional roadshow was the obvious way of spending it!
The whole thing was a real last-minute deal- The deal to run a GTV6 alongside the existing Napolina-backed car of Jon Dooley was done on Feb 6th '84, with the first BTCC round scheduled for 24th March....
The Kirby car was prepared by his own crew from a traded-in road car, with engines built by RS Race Engineering. (The existing Dooley car having been built a couple of years earlier by Bob Dove, hence the differences between the two cars)
For 1985, preparation of Kirby's car moved to RS, and although the 'Salmon Can' money was no longer available, John West took over as sponsor, the deal being extended to eventually cover Dooley's car, as Napolina were due to pull out mid-year.
The last ARDT/John West GTV6 appearance before the 75 took over, the Donington ETCC race in '86, was done using the Kirby car, which was subsequently sold on, passing through the hands of Peter Hilliard, Vic Woods and Chris Snowdon who campaigned it in the AROC series
http://www.gtv6-156gta.be/GTV6course...oItaliaNr7.pdf
So we've traced it to 1996, any ideas after that?
The article also mentions the rivalry between ARDT and the Terry Drury team that chunterer referred to earlier in the thread