Chevron B34-B39

[Chris Townsend]

Bryan

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 !!

[John Turner]

There are now separate threads for B34, B35, B40 & B42 in the Chassis History Archive.