Formula Atlantic etc (was 'Chevron B29s')

[Chris Townsend]

I'm trying to trace the identities and histories of three particular Chevron B29s that raced as Formula Atlantics in the 1976 ShellSport G8 series in UK.

"The Dowsett car" raced in '76 by Phil Dowsett.
This car was bought from Chevron in 1975 by Stephen Choularton and raced by him in the team he ran with Jim Crawford in F.Atlantic. In 1977 it was sold to John Ledlie who used it in the Irish Atlantic series.

"The Lawler car" raced by Alo Lawler in 1975 [F.Atlantic] and 1976
[Indyatlantic and the Shellsport series]. Probably bought new by Lawler. I think this car may have been sold to Ireland in 1977, either to Derek Shortall or John Eastwood.

"The Bailey car" raced by Ken Bailey in 1976 [Indyatlantic and Shellsport series] and 1977 [Shellsport] Probably used in British Atlantic series in 1975 by someone else, maybe Brett Riley or Richard Morgan [entered by Wheatcroft], as the other two B29s used in Britain [by Gunnar Nilsson and Jim Crawford] both went to South Africa in 1976.


Any help gratefully appreciated, especially if you think you own one of these cars.

[David McKinney]

The Lawler car went to Eastwood, and in 1978 to Joey Greenan. Shortall’s was the car Patsy McGarrity had raced in Ireland in 1975 and 1976
The Ken Bailey car also raced in Ireland in 1978, in the hands of one E. Jordan

[Chris Townsend]

David

That's a fantastic bit of tidying up of histories for me. Thanks!
I'm really impressed with how quickly people contributing to this forum have been able to help here.

Pursuing this Chevron B29 thing a bit further, of Irish owned B29s in 1978/79, any idea where the Patsy McGarrity/John Smith car of 1978 came from? And in 1979 I have cars in the hands of Nelson Todd, Ken Fildes and Laurence Jacobsen [in Scotland] and Dave Rackham and Wayne Wainwright [in UK Atlantic]. The Jordan car went to Vivian Candy. Any idea whose these others had been.

Also, Jeremy Rossiter occasional and welcome contributor to this forum used to run B29.75.29. Jeremy, do you remember who you sold it to?

[Bryan Miller]

Chris , isn,t it strange , I own the Eddie Jordan March 74b that he sold to purchase the Chevron.
For your records 2 only B29 Chevron,s in Australia, both of which you can eliminate from your where are they now scenarios.
They are B29-75-30 ex Brian Redman Tasman car with 2.0 B.M.W. which was then converted to Atlantic and came to Australia and now runs very sucessfully in historic.
Other car is B29-75-05 which went new to Albert Poon in S.E. Asia as an Atlantic and also runs very competitevely in historic in Australia.

[Armco Bender]

Totally useless info but the Redman B29 was the only B29 to come to NZ.I saw Redman drive it against the F5000's,he was outclassed by the power of the F5000s.At Pukekohe on the first lap of the GP he went straight through the chicane and lead the first lap,there after he had a ding dong battle with Kevin Bartletts Lola all the way to the finish for about 5th place.David Oxton ran the car the following year as an Atlantic,then the following season they cut the F2 sidepods off it and slimmed it down to look much like a B34 Chevron.I think Heather Spurle was the last to race it here before it went off to Aussie.
Did the 74B you have race in NZ at all?.

[Bryan Miller]

Armco Bender , no it never ran in N.Z.ex Ireland to Western Australia.in 1979.
However my brother has a March 772 ex N.Z. that is giving us a lot of problems sorting out history and Ken Smith can,t seem to assist.Can you if I give you details??
I believe we have started a new thread.

[Armco Bender]

If Ken Smith cant id it for you it must be a hard one then.I'm sure less than a handful of 77's ever came here.A 772 would be unusual because most of them were 77Bs or 773s with the narrow sidepods that were used here.Does your 772 have the wide F2 sidepods?.The Marches weren't overly sucessfull here against the Chevrons and Ralts.It wasn't until Fabi came here with the 78B in 1979 they won some races.

[Chris Townsend]

Bryan

Thanks for your help on the B29s. I knew the Redman car was down under, but wasn't sure where the Poon car had gone after it was advertised recently.

Does your ex Jordan 74B have a plate on it? I have the history of this car as 74/75: Stiller for Bev Bond and Alan Jones. 75/76 Des Donnelly. 77 Jordan. 78? 79: Colin Simpson [Scottish hillclimb championship]

Also the 772 [or do you mean 722? A couple of those went to NZ and one went to Ken Smith, an ex Gerry Birrel car.] If it is a 772 it might be that one of the 77Bs had been rebuilt on a damaged 772 tub. March were fond of that kind of thing - there were at least 3 cars circulating in the mid 70s built out 742 tubs that had been modified by Patrick Depaillier [a 753, a 74B and a 742], presumably all with the same chassis number. I have pretty good histories of 772s in period for the first couple of years of their lives and might be able to throw some light

[Armco Bender]

Marches must be one of the most confusing cars,this is typical, a site advertising a 722 thats been rebuilt from a 76B,a 722 looks nothing like the 76 series http://www.race-cars.com/carsales/ma...0/722-20ss.htm.Several March 74/75/76/77 bitsers were raced here in the Atlantic series.
The 2 722's that came here Ken Smith raced one,I'm sure it was sold to Aussie,the other was run by Frank Radisch with several different power plants,last time I saw it was around 1977 at Baypark running a libre race with a Mazda rotary motor.Ken Smith ran a 732 after the 722 and it went to Aussie to.

[Chris Townsend]

Armco

You're not kidding about Marches, though it may well be that underneath that particular 76B bodywork is a 722 tub.
Underneath several 73Bs - as built by March AS NEW CARS - were 712M tubs. Ray Mallock's had 712M-5 [ex Beuttler F2] and Sonny Rajah 712M-7 [ex Peterson F2]. We can only praise March for their early committment to recycling and ecological issues, but it's a nightmare for the historian.

This is not helped by drivers changing the identity of their cars whenever they modified them a bit. Howard Wood is described as racing a 75B in the '77 Tasman. Motoring News in UK said this was ex Val Musetti, meaning that underneath it all was either the ex Stan Matthews 73B [itself possibly built on a recycled 712M] or a 742 tub of indeterminate provenance. Does anyone know about the NZ history of this car?

This one is probably more a question for Brian: If only two B29s make their way to Australia, is the car raced by Eric Morgan in the 77 Gold Star the ex Redman/Oxton car?

[Armco Bender]

The Redman/Oxton car was driven by Oxton in the 77 series still in F2 config,in 78 they removed the F2 sidepods and ran it with a B34 type tub to cut the weight down.Oxton sold it to FF driver Morgan around '79/80 when he bought a Ralt.
Howard Woods car was an older 74 type March with updated body work,I think he ran in the '78 or '79 series here with it,it wasnt competitive any way.

[Bryan Miller]

Gentleman,the ex Poon car is still in the hands of Peter Addison in Sydney,who is a good friend of mine and has owned the car for about 2 years ,but gets bored with his new toys or wants something quicker.
When the car changes hands I will advise.

Re. my 74B , long story ,especially if you can only type 1 finger.
Ex Bev Bond /Jonesy to,ref.AutosportMarch 27 1975 p.57 to Frank Blanchard, who in another article described as having driven car , however I can,t find evidence , thence to Bill Gowdy , ref. Autosport July 17 1975 p.71 , till adv. for sale nov.27 75 , thence toGerry Kinnane ref. p45 Autosport March 25 1976 , with driver Des Donnelly for rest of 1976.
For 1977 Eddie Jordan ref.Autosport March 31 1977, for all of season till adv. for sale 10 /11/ 1977 p56.
The next I could find was in Australia , but we were advised that it had come from Scottish Hillclimbs , but they are not reported very well.
The purchaser was a Mr. Grahame Brown , a Scotsman who was moving to Western Australia , and bought with him 2 Marches the other car being Des Donnelly,s 73B which is ex Colin Vanderwell,s Championship winning Yellow pages car .
The Vandervell car retains it chassis plate 73B-8 , my car is stamped on front R.H.S. bulkhead 74B-12 , but the plate went awol I understand as the 2 cars came in as 1 and spares.
You have filled in a gap that I new existed in Scotland but could not confirm.
The tub no. on mine is 73-26.
Ihave another March problem re. 74B-12 which is also here via Ken Smith but again no Assistance despite promises perhaps this is the ex Val Musseti car.
Re. B.T.35 Atlantics you could well be correct re 6 off I only have the supposed build numbers out of books.
One car that ran against my 35 in 1971 when Ed Reeves drove it was Tom Belso , however refs. to that also say it was a B.T.28/35.
I can assist with both Modus cars ex N.Z. but another night my finger is worn out.
Bye.

[Bryan Miller]

Sorry I should have added , inside 1 of the bodypanels I found a I.M.R.C. scrutinnering sticker .
I.M.R.C. = Irish Motor Racing Club.

[Chris Townsend]

Bryan

You are wonderful mine of information! I think we need to pace that one finger, and also not spoil me with too much history at once. I will try and find some more about Colin Simpson and his ownership of the car. I've got his purchase of the car from either Autosport or Motoring News, I'll have to check my notes.

I have found another 74B that went down under, to NZ, which might help with your mystery car. This is the ex-Ted Wentz Wella car which was raced by Alan Crocker in 76/77. Crocker was a Kiwi who raced the car briefly in the 76 Indyatlantic series and then used it in the 1977 Tasman. He appeared with it at Bay Park and the Motoring News report checks it as ex-Wentz.

I don't know the number of this car because I don't know who [if anyone] has the sales records for March Atlantics. But I can have a good stab because it's the Wella car. Wentz had won the Wella FF1600 championship in '73 and turned up to the prizegiving, expecting to collect a small cheque, to find a fully kitted out Atlantic, because Wella had decided without telling him, to back him the following year. [Why could I never find a sponsor like that? Okay, I never placed better than 6th or 7th, maybe that was why.]
Since this was in December '73 and since Motoring News calls the car 'the first customer 74B' as opposed to a prototype which would perhaps have a U or R prefix from March, I've always thought of this as 73B-1.

The Musetti cars are a nightmare, since they were always described as being at least a model newer than they actually were. I know he ran 752-15 with a GAA V6 in the back in '76/77 [ex Walkinshaw and ex Kuwashima in F2] and that in 75 he had the Matthews 73B. By 76 he has two cars one described as a 75B and the other as a 742. I think the Matthews car is under the 75B and that a 732 tub features in the 742, but who really knows. Maybe I'll have to track him down. [Interesting guy, was a stunt driver for films who did the classic Mini sequence in the Italian Job.]

The BT35 numbers I quoted all appear in the one race report in Autosport for an Atlantic race at Castle Combe, so I take those as accurate. Belsø's car was a BT28 [number 35 according to contemporary reports] used by Dick Barker in 1970 and David Cole in late 69.

[Andrew Kitson]

Originally posted by Chris Townsend
I know he ran 752-15 with a GAA V6 in the back in '76/77 [ex Walkinshaw and ex Kuwashima in F2] and that in 75 he had the Matthews 73B. By 76 he has two cars one described as a 75B and the other as a 742. I think the Matthews car is under the 75B and that a 732 tub features in the 742, but who really knows.

Chris, do you mean Stan Matthews?
He raced an Ensign and then a 73B in Atlantic under the Promoto racing banner.Both green and yellow in classic 'lotus' style.
My father was Stan's mechanic when he raced special saloons in 68/69 before he went to the JRRDS at Snetterton.
Now running a bar in Spain I believe. I have not seen him since '78 at Silverstone. He was pretty well off for an 18 year old when he first turned up at our house to look at the racing saloon Anglia my father spannered on and arrived in a Ferrari he had bought the day before from Peter Sellers.That turned a few heads on our council estate! His folks ran the Wicken Country Hotel near Silverstone. I remember going there as a kid when the GP was on and many of the F1 drivers stayed there.
Amon, McLaren, Gurney, Hill, Bonnier etc were all in the hotel bar so it was 'autograph book' heaven! Stan became quite good when he got to F3/Atlantic but I think the money ran out.