Chevron B40

[Simon Hadfield]

When we took the tyres off the rims still had F.O.R. painted on the inside.

[allenbrown]

So clearly not the car Barton crashed then. Thanks Simon.

One original aim of this thread was to find out which car Barton had and we seem to have eliminated the Opert cars (unless Mike Sidgwick's car turns out to be a repaired Barton wreck), Cinotti's 02, one ROC car, the B40-Ferrari (04), Hasemi's 07 and Ludwig's 14. That leaves the Ardmore car (01), the second ROC car and two more Japanese cars. I think the Ardmore is car is the only likely contender but how to find out?

Allen

[Dan Rear]

Originally Posted by Simon Hadfield

Ours is 06, repatriated from french hillclimbing, I think John Crowsons is the Laffite, Prost, Gibson ,car and Mike (?) Sidgwick's is the third team car. I have never heard of Opert running a BMW motor before.

Is Mike Sidgwick's car the one Crowson had before, ie -08 the Opert/Prost/Gibson/Harper one ? And if so, where was Gareth Burnett's car after Bob Leckie in Scotland, speedeventing somewhere maybe? Steve ?

Allen by your process of elimination, I agree the Andy B car was most likely the Ardmore -01, which doesn't seem to have appeared ever again does it ?

[allenbrown]

A few mods after reading some Autosport:

B40-77-01 Ardmore/ICI [Hart] 1977 ...
B40-77-02 Trivellato for Patrese [BMW] 1977 - Cinotti 1978
B40-77-03 ?
B40-77-04 Chevron-Ferrari test car 1977 - Scuderia Everest 1978
B40-77-05 Opert for Bancroft and other [Hart] 1977 ... Sidgwick 2006
B40-77-06 Opert for Rosberg and others [Hart] 1977 ... France ... Hadfield 2006
B40-77-07 Hasemi 1977-80 ... Japan 2006
B40-77-08 Opert for Laffite and others [Hart] 1977 - Opert for Prost 1978 - Gibson 1979 - Harper 1980 ... Ames 1984-86 ... Hill 1988-90 ... Crowson 2006
B40-77-09 ?
B40-77-10 ?
B40-77-12 ?
B40-77-14 Klaus Ludwig [Hart] 1977 - KWS 1978 - McLaren 1978 - Leckie 1979 ... Burnett 2006

The two ROC cars for Pignard and Jaussaud/Ferrier plus the two other Japanese cars must be 03, 09, 10 and 12. Later F/Pacific results (on OldRacingcars.com - I really must look their more often!) show four B40s in Japan in 1980.

The bit about Needell's having a BMW engine and Lugwig's having a BDA did not reflect Autsport's reports. There was also a B40-BDX at Donington at the end of 1977 for Divina Galica but F1R gives that a B39 chassis number. It's possible this could be the later Barton car too.

An Opert advert in November 1977 for the ex-Laffite/Merzario car (presumably 08) calls it their last remaining car.

Allen

[Chris Townsend]

Allen

What ever it was, I don't think the Galica car became Bartons.
Dave McKinney reported it as Kevin Bartlett's car at Macau in 1978 owned by Albert Poon.
The plate given by F1R might have been on the car, but I think it came out of Opert's toolbox... B39-77-09 was an Opert team car for Atlantic according to the build records, given Rosberg and Pironi's destruction derby in 77 they certainly needed it in season, and Dick Leppla is selling it, with that chassis number, in the USA in 1983.

FWIW I think the Galica car was the B39/40 test car [which probably didn't carry a plate when it was testing] There is one mentioned in the B39 records

Chris

[allenbrown]

That would make sense. Autosport said someyhing about it only have been run by Bennett as part of the production process. Sounds like half a story having got into the journalist's notebook and having come out again a slightly different shape. The car was loaned to Ardmore for the race so I wouldn't have thought that plate would have come out of Opert's toolbox. Maybe F1R had some other sighting of the car or extrapolated something from her appearances in an Opert B39 in Atlantic earlier that season.

I'll cross it off the list of B40s.

Allen

[Chris Townsend]

Bartlett drove a Poon entered Chevron at Macau 1977.
There are a number of problems about the car [not the least Autosport describing it as a March...]
David McKinney in NZMA says it is the car driven by Galica at F2 Donington [described as 39-77-09 in F1R but certainly not that car which Chevron build register has sold to Opert and which has subsequent history with plate in US] David has subsequently told me that on reflection he thought it was a B40
Other people call it a B40 too. I wonder if this was the "B42" which Poon bought to replace the B34

I've long thought that what Galica drove was a B39/40/42 hybrid based on the B39 development car [39-77-10 in the build record]. Opert ran this car at Donington, and the 09 plate might even have been on the car for the occasion - having come out of Fred's toolbox, while Keke's car was being rebuilt back home. As a development car [especially a Chevron development car...] I'd be surprised if 39-10 carried a plate of its own.

Would Bartlett have any more to tell us? Or any connections within SE Asia?

Chris

[allenbrown]

Chris - did Opert run it at Donington? I thought it was attached the Ardmore team. (Although this is based purely on my distant memory of listing the B40s for that year)

Allen

[Chris Townsend]

Allen

From memory entered by Ardmore, but ran with Opert stickers on it as I recall. Prefaced Galica's deal to run in Atlantic with Opert the following year with Olympus backing. Ardmore, of course, had equally strong connections to Chevron that year because the ICI backed car run by them was, effectively, a works car wasn't it?

Chris

[allenbrown]

Good point - it would have been difficult to define the exact boundaries between Opert, Ardmore and the factory.

Allen

[Dan Rear]

Fwiw I always thought Fred's Bolton connexions were much the stronger. Ardmore was Creighton Brown and Ray Mallock wasn't it, I don't recall either of these having any 'Chevron history' prior to 77, nor Guy Edwards for that matter. Certainly Ray and Guy had plenty of previous with Bicester, maybe the reason they opted for Chevron that year !!

[allenbrown]

Originally Posted by allenbrown

Andy bought a B40 in time for the 1978 Bank Holiday Monday Croft meeting (see Autosport 8 June 1978 p51 and p57) but put it over the bank in practice. He never raced it again so presumably it was too bent even for Barton.

Andy Barton Jr has confirmed that this 'B40' was his 1977 B35 rebuilt with B40 bits.

Originally Posted by Andy Barton

What I can tell you about the Chevron B40 was that it was the B35 with a few bits B40 bits. Dad wanted to re-build it completely as a B40 after he crashed it but the B40 suspension etc. was not available to him at the time.
Dad hated the B35, said the handling was crap...that's why Chevron quickly brought out the B40.

Allen

[allenbrown]

Hey Simon!

Echappement May 1978 p120 rough translation: Yves Martin returns three years after his accident at Montgueux having bought a Chevron B40 with Hart engine from Fred Opert, the car having been driven in F2 by Rosberg.

Your B40-77-06 then, establishing pretty firmly that Prost drove 08.

Allen

[ianr]

hi Allen

I am very pleased to say that I now have the B40 chassis no. B40-77-06 which I aquired from Simon and Marcus at the end of last year. In all the photographs in the period this chassis was allways fitted and still is with a "spider frame" rear wing see the photo in the Chevron book, whilst the Prost car has a pylon type rear wing. B40-77-06 also features some other unique parts which were specific to Opert / Rosberg

[allenbrown]

More on the two ROC Chevron B40s. Pignard raced on the French hills most weekends in 1977 but the second car is only seen at two French F2 races: Rouen 26 June (Jaussaud qualified on back row and finished 12th) and Nogaro 3 July (Jaussaud DNQ), and then at Estoril on 2 Oct where Laurent Ferrier qualified last and finished last. Pignard failed to quallify for any of these races, or for his debut race at Pau on 30 May.

The reason for the extra fishing is two-fold - firstly I've had a massive PC failure and have lost access to all my notes, databases and emails (only for a few days I hope) and secondly I've been contacted by Pierre Haverland who owned 40-77-12 some years ago and said that it was originally one of the ROC cars.

The number 77-12 seems late for Pignard's car as it first appeared early April but it may be the second car, the one that appears at Rouen in June. I checked Echappement for any appearance of a second B40 and there is none until Limonest Mt Verdun on 11 Sep where our old friend Gerard Pillon hires the B40 that Pignard had at the start of the season:

Pillon avait loue a Fred Stalder la Chevron B40-Roc que Pignard pilotait en debut de season. Malheureusement, it n'ira pas bien loin, victime d'un tout-droit aux essais.

So it looks like Pignard starts with one car (77-03?) and then moves over to 77-12 at some point in the season, leaving his earlier car available for hire drivers.

For 1978, Stalder modified one B40 to B42 spec for Pignard and Pierre tells me that his car had those B42 mods when he bought it.

One curiosity in all this is that Pignard is at a hilllclimb on 3 July, the day of the Nogaro F2 race but presumably he could do that as he'd failed to qualify at Nogaro. Then he appears the next week in a rented B29-ROC as he'd wrecked his engine at Nogaro. So how could he have raced on 3 July and where had the second B40-ROC from the Nogaro meeting gone? There's still something here that doesn't add up.

Allen

[Chris Townsend]

Allen

Could he have used a third B40? F1R give the chassis numbers 03 and 04 for the ROC cars at Rouen [and subsequently]. Those numbers can't all be guesswork, there has to be an observation somewhere. Then 12 comes along; they use two for the races and one for the hills. Earlier in the season they use one on the circuits and the other on the hills, whcih is why 04 doesnt appear before Rouen.

Chris

[allenbrown]

Adam said somewhere that he doubted the F1R had seen ROC chassis plates in 1977 as they didn't appear in the UK and he didn't think anyone else was covering F2 for them at that time. At least one of those numbers (I can't recall which) has a dot after it in the Black Books which means that it is speculative. In particular, 04 is unlikely as a ROC car as that number is observed at Donington on the Chevron-Ferrari test car which had been the centre of a long argument between Chevron and Ferrari over the installation of the engine. The Chevron book discusses the life of this car and gives the impression that it would be an early car. I suspect F1R saw the second ROC B40, saw the 'missing' 04 in the B40 series and put two and two together...

Allen

[Chris Townsend]

It's 03 that is marked as speculative
I've sent an email to Tim Colman...

Chris

[driftwood]

time for a list?

[davyboy]

Looks like 05 is on the market again.

http://www.racecarsdirect.com/viewli...php?view=11835

[driftwood]

yes drove once didnt like SS cars prefers prototypes

[SBI]

To Allen Brown:
"Did you see the ROC cars in the flesh?"
Sorry, the only flesh on board will be when the driver is in the hotseat.

Mister Fred STALDER did not yet react on our questions about all the ROC-cars. Maybe next.

Another B40F2, # 40-77-07, should be last year in dismantled condition in Asia. Our boss tried to get #07 in as a spare/teamcar.

Till next time, greetings,
B40F2 #40-77-12 (ex-R.O.C.)

[znarfg]

Hi all
I've seen B40-78-14 in Swiss. The car comes from Helmut Kalenborn and should be the former Klaus Ludwig car. The car has still the old ONS-Papers. Helmut Kalenborn purchased the car in 1979 and sold the car to Willy Markwalder in the 90th. Have we now 2 cars?? Any idea?

[Dan Rear]

Thats interesting znarfg. It seems the car went to KWS in period, then back to the UK, then over to the Continent again.

[Patrese256]

I've just had contact from the current owner of Riccardo Patrese's 1977 Macau GP Chevron B40/B42. The car is currently being restored ready to race in Australia, but detailed photos of the 1977 livery would be gratefully received to help complete the work.

I'll be happy to pass any on if they're out there somewhere