March 71BM

[allenbrown]

Simon Perkins has been in touch. His car is 71BM-15, the former Chris Smith car mentioned above and was originally Mike Rand's car. More details to follow.

Allen

[allenbrown]

More details as promised. Mike Rand's 1972 '722' was also 71BM-15, as was Charlie Gibson's 1975 '73B' and '712M'. Simon has a continuous history for his car.

Allen

[wbmoore]

Allen.......

No luck with the logbook but I did speak with Marc Bahner today and he said he bought the car from Vasek Pollak. I'm told he raced a Porsche.....a 917, I believe. I don't know if Pollak raced the march or just had it.
The sad news is it was a complete car minus engine when Bahner sold it. Now the body is gone along with the gauges and I'm sure many odds and ends. Marc said it came with a Lotus TwinCam that he took out for his Brabham.
Wonder if this will lead anywhere.
Happy belated New Year. brad.

[Chris Townsend]

Brad
Was Bahner able to give you any dates as to when he bought the car from Polak? Polak didn't race one as far as I can tell, but he might have backed one

Chris

[wbmoore]

Chris.....

I'll be speaking with him again in February and will ask him then.

Every puzzle piece helps. Thanks. brad.

[allenbrown]

A little bird just told me that 71BM-8 is in Denmark.

[Mike Rand]

Allan, if you are still on these threads, Mike Rand here.
I did own a March 71BM, a 73B, and years later a 722 in FB trim that I bought from it's original owner, a doctor from Ohio, I cannot recall his name right now. I bought it , with 2 twin cam motors, in 1987 I think, ran a few historic races with it and sold it to California if memory serves [highly unlikely. I was managing the Barber Saab Pro Series at the time, we were supporting an IMSA race at Road Atlanta so put it in one of the 4 rigs we transported everything in and rolled if off the liftgate into someone elses rig for it's ride to it's new home, no memory of the name of the buyer.
My 71BM I bought new from Joe Grimaldi, the G of March as we called him over here, late in the 1971 season and ran it all of 1972. It went to Charlie Gibson who ran it for a few years eventually updating it with 73-4 bodywork. I saw it a couple of years ago at Watkins Glen where Simon was running an Historic event.
It was on it's third tub when I sold it to Charlie and I know he put at least 2 new tubs, and as mentioned in thos thread, March's tub program, we'd call and get either a new one or a refurbished/rebuilt crashed tub and send our crashed back for them to fix and sell on to the next in need.
I remember paying under $1,000 for a replacement/new one.
The 73B was traded in to Opert on a Rondel/Motul M1 but I took the car to Joe Grimaldi, who I had bought it from, as he had a customer for it, no idea where it went or is.

[Alan Brown]

A late report from the Historic F2 meeting at Thruxton on March 23/24 2008.

Bill Coombs raced the above car in the Class B (F. Atlantic) section of the meeting.

I'll put details of the 712s on their thread.

[Chris Townsend]

Does anyone know Bill Coombs?
It would be good to hear a bit more about 71BM-08
It was a Canadian series car, probably Randy Fraser's, then to Gilles Léger and Patricia Smith, but that's largely worked out by process of elimination...

Chris

[Dan Rear]

If so we could ask him about his Anson, unless anyone knows already?

[Alan Brown]

Originally Posted by Chris Townsend

Does anyone know Bill Coombs?
It would be good to hear a bit more about 71BM-08
It was a Canadian series car, probably Randy Fraser's, then to Gilles Léger and Patricia Smith, but that's largely worked out by process of elimination...

Chris

According to MN 9-4-08 it is owned by John Dunham.

[allenbrown]

It's over 11 years since this thread was touched, but the research did continue, and the results so far have been published here:

https://www.oldracingcars.com/march/71bm/