Chevron B20

[Chris Townsend]

Richard Parsons described his B20 as 'ex Watson' in 1977. [See MN 9.6.77 p.13] This car also known earlier to belong to Nelson Todd, so it looks as though it survived.

I think ten built, including the 71 model that is used by Brown at Bogota. Agree with Harry that the works cars rebuilt into customer cars. For that reason we don't need more than 10 in all - if we assume that many more, where do they go. At the moment B20s seem remarkably self-contained and explicable.

I have to say that I don't completely trust the plates that works Chevron F2 cars turn up with at meetings. The car that Gethin uses at Thruxton is described by contemporary reports as the car he used at Mallory and tested before then, but it seems to have a different plate - the plate that is now on the ex Skeaping F3 car, and which makes sense on that car as the first 1972 announced and built. The situation is worse on B18s, but it seems that Derek Bennett wasn't that interested in having clear identities for cars and that when dealing with works cars [or even semi-works Opert cars as late as 1977] we need to be cautious about what was written down for the plate because the relationship between that label and the car it's attached to can be a bit tenuous.
[Two examples beside the Gethin B20 are the Opert works B29 at Zolder late in 75, which F1R notes, I believe accurately, but is actually the plate for what is by then a car running Atlantic in Canada, and Galica's car at Donington in 78, which is shown in the works build records as an Opert team car, again for North America.]

Chris

[Harry Hickling]

Chris, I agree with your comments.

Do you know the chassis No. of the Richard Parsons car?

Harry

[Bryan Miller]

Harry,

Glad to have you aboard, please post a pic. of the B20.

Bryan.

[allenbrown]

B20-72-6 definitely stays in France in 1973. At Mont Dore, Damiasin's car is "Chevron B20 ex-Maublanc". Maublanc may have started the 1973 season in this car until his Chevron-BMW was ready.

This may be a red herring but both Maublanc and Mieusset have B25-BMWs and the livery on the cars appear different. It must be the same car, mustn't it...

Allen

[Steve Marschman]

Harry and I have exchanged email messages in the past, and I believe the car I have sitting here in my garage is B20-72-3. I called Fred Opert about it, but he was less than talkative (probably has too many people calling him about old cars). This car is the one with the brass tag on the top of the roll loop that lists a number of "72FB14." It also has the ugly 1970's air brushed paint scheme that you can see on race-cars.com archive (http://www.race-cars.com/carsold/che.../72fb14pp.htm). The car is claimed to have a B27 nose, but if it is, it has been modified. I am not sure how to tell if the front end is actually carrying B27 components, perhaps the brake rotors are updated (vented vs solid???). The rear wing appears to be original but is now hung on a hand-made aluminum (sorry, aluminium) sheet affair that looks pretty frail.

I am slowly restoring this car. I am in the process of building a BDA engine for it. The car came with a Ford LA block (sans crank, rods, and pistons) and a Brian Hart big valve head. While I would like to build the Lotus, I am advised against it due to the ability to float the valves and bend everything all to pieces (which, I probably would stupidly do!).

Well, this message is getting too long...
Steve

[Harry Hickling]

Hi Steve, yes I tried very hard to sort this out for you, and before you I worked on it for Jeff McKay. But I couldn't get anywhere with it. The difficulty I have is getting to something definitive enough to be able to say yes it is chassis xx. If you come across any other clues please let us know and I will keep on it for you.

By the way the car could be B20-72-3 but it could also be something else. That is the problem. If we had a more definitive history of the car, other than it being a Formula B car with specific trail of it's history would help. If we can prove it was a Fred Opert car, then that certainly helps. But even then that narrows it down to one of three B20's. (But this would help a lot).

Don't dispair though, I'm confident that sooner or later it will become clear. And in the mean time, at least we know it is a genuine B20.

One last thing to put the record straight B20-72-3 and B20-F2-3 are different cars.

[allenbrown]

The brass tag is a SCCS registration number. The number '14' is key to this as it is either the entry number of the car when first seen (less likely) or the 14th car to be registered (more likely). Either way, that's useful.

If it was the 14th car to be registered in 1972 then it must have been at Bogota, which means it must be the Bobby Brown B20-71-1 as that was the only B20 present. We need to find some entry lists for 1972 to see who ran as #14. I've checked but I have none for FB that season.

Allen

[Harry Hickling]

Allen, great idea re search on the chassis no. I understand the logic that it may be the 14th 1972 FB car, but I would caution jumping to it being B20-71-1 / Bogota Car. Certainly a check on the records or even a photo of the Bogota Car would help.

Steve, by the way from the photos I originally saw from Jeff. It looked like the nose and wing had been simply been added onto the original chassis and suspension. I suspect the chassis may be pretty original. The nose and wing are not. Happy to look at detailed photo's anytime to confirm.

Steve, Jeff did have the history of the car back to Paul Liddell in 1977, and there are those very interesting No's stamped on the rear components of the car (Which is why I suspect you believe it is chassis No. 3). Suggest you post what you have definitive info on and the photo's of the specific No's that are stamped on the rear chassis components onto the site. Might generate some ideas.

[Chris Townsend]

Do not think that this can be the Brown Bogota chassis, because that is fairly traceble. [Though there may have been more than one B20 at Bogota if the entry list is to be believed...]
My question here is was Bogota SCCA sanctioned? The first round in the SCCA pro series at Laguna has only one B20, Brown's Opert car, but this is in May, giving plenty of time for a newer chassis [03 for example...] to turn up.

Steve, have you stripped the bodywork back to gel coat? What might be important here are the first two layers of paint above what I hope to be dark blue! Also, are there any remnants of stickers - esp scrutineer's stickers - that might give us a clue. Also, definitely can we have the numbers off teh suspension!

Chris

[allenbrown]

Good point. The SCCA weren't necessarily involved at Bogota so this could well be one of Opert's 72 cars.

Opert had cars at the JAF GP in Japan just four days before Laguna Seca so we could be reasonably confident that Brown's Fuji car was a different one to his Laguna car.

[Chris Townsend]

The entry for Bogota shows a number of Opert B20s beside Browns.
We had always assumed that of these only the 71/1 development car shows up and is run for Brown with Opert taking B18s instead.
Now I seem to recall from somewhere that this car was meant to have run in its original fibreglass even without gel coat. However, if you look at the picture Allen sent me of Gus Hutchison and Bobby Brown together at the SECOND Bogota race, Brown's car is clearly dark blue.
The second Bogota race was 5 March 72.
By this time Chevron had completed back in England at least the Skeaping F3 car [20.72.01] which is photographed in AS 2 March [meaning completion at least a week before given press deadlines] and the first F2 car [20.72.02 is the chassis no given at Mallory] MN 24 Feb p.18 with photo of car says 'Another new single seater to be tested at Silverstone last week was the Chevron B20 which Peter Gethin is to drive in the Euro F2 championship. Fitted with an 1800cc Alan Smith BDA Bennett did a dozen or so laps in the damp as gethin was still suffering from the after effects of flu.' "Last week" would mean the car was completed at the latest 16 Feb in order to be testing at the end of the week.

These dates suggest that Chevron could also have finished an FB car [or two] and shoved it straight on a plane to Bogota. CPAW report of the second race gives Brown, Robertson and Junco as all in B20s - and they had a reporter on the spot who would know the difference between a B18 and a B20 [There was a B18 in the first race, used by van Beuren [he ran an Opert BT29 in teh second] There may have been two B20s even at the first race, CPAW report of that has a group photo of the early laps and there is what looks like a B20 from teh front [which could be orange] near the back. Brown [who definitely had a B20] is already past the cameraman at this point.

Incidentally, the races were sanctioned by the Federacion Colombiana de Automovilismo Deportivo, administered by the SCCA, and sponsored by Marlboro.

Agree with Allen that the Fuji and Laguna cars are almost certainly different

Chris

[allenbrown]

Chris

Have I seen the entry list for Bogota? We don't have entry list details on the site?

Allen

[Steve Marschman]

I'll have to post up some pictures of my car this next week. Sorry I wasn't able to get to back to this thread sooner. I do believe Harry is correct in that only the nose and the wing were different. I have seen other B20 pictures and it appears my front suspension is strictly B20. There does not appear to be any other mods to the front. Were the front brake rotors vented on the B20? That's all that might be different (if the B20 were solid originally... mine are vented).

Where would the original factory chassis plate be located?

Also, I will go sand through the paint on the body upper cowl. That might be the only piece of original bodywork since on my car the entire nose piece comes off as a single unit right up to the front bulkhead. The lower bodywork was never painted, it was simply the polished aluminum.

I do have all the paperwork back to 1978. I have been out to Tacoma to visit Jeff and I drove to Colorado to pick the car up from the guy he sold (actually traded) it to.

Steve

[Harry Hickling]

Steve, Allen and Chris.

This looks consistent with my info.

Standard B20:
- Front Ventilated Disk.
- Rear Solid Disk.
- Girling AR2 Brake Calipers.

- 2 Variants of Oil Catch Tanks that I know of. (I have seen the drawings of those).

- Chassis Plaque (You don't have). Is located on the inside of the alloy tub on the top left hand side of the driver just before the instrument panel.

I'm not sure how many cars had bare alloy skin on the tub. The factory cars are all painted red. B20-71-1 was bare alloy and in the bare orange fiberglass. Having said that, Steve the car could easily have been re-skinned. By the way this first car had no rear vision mirror mounts (as per subsequent cars).

- Rear wing mounts changed from the early to the later cars.

The official Derek Bennett Engineering Ltd Chevron Suspension Settings for B20 (Photo Copy on letter head):
- 220 lbs spring front
- 190 lbs spring rear
- 1/8 toe in front and rear
- 0 deg camber front and rear
- 5 1/4 deg castor front and 1 1/2 rear
- Ride Height 3 1/4 inch front and rear
- Tyre Pressures 14 lbs front and 16 lbs rear
- Bilstein Pre-Set Shock Absorbers.

Not that any of that is particularly important, but a good bit of official trivia.

[Harry Hickling]

Whilst we are on the topic of the first three cars I want to close out the question of B20-71-1. I have just got off the phone with Nelson Todd to confirm my understanding of the following details and to update my files on the Prototype.

I think we all agree that B20-71-1 was the prototype and then the Bobby Brown Formula B car that raced at Bogota. This car stayed in the states and was owned by James Schol June 1972 – 74. The car was sold to a Belgium and then bought by Nelson Todd in Nth Ireland who owned it until recently. It is restored and looks great. Nelson has run the car at numerous events and comments about it being a great handling car. I have a copy of the log book noting that “Chevron cars Ltd confirm Chevron B20 Chassis No. 1 was manufactured in the UK in 1971 and exported to use there. It was fitted with a 1600 cc 4 cylinder engine." This is attached the inside of the James Scholl log book. The log book describes the body color as “Orange”.

Perhaps of interest “Driver was reminded of request for F SCCA cars with sport car noses that height of top corner of nose must not exceed height of front wheel rim”. Engine in log book recorded as Ford Cosworth BDD. Its SCCA Identity was 11 – 192. Chevron F/B ATL. Jack Van Dell written on cover. Also address for Peter Symonds name and address crossed out.

This car was sold by Nelson recently and has gone to Europe. Nelson is sending me the contact details and I will follow-up on this.

OK – So this is B20-71-1. All accounted for.