Chevron

Chevron was a manufacturer of racing cars, founded by Derek Bennett, who remained in charge from 1965 to his death in 1978. The firm has remained active in various guises since his death.

Chevron: a Lancastrian company
Chevron was notable for its proud Lancastrian nature - unlike the rest of the British racing car industry which tended to be based in an arc running from South West London (the old Brooklands circuit and Heathrow Airport round to Silverstone, Chevron remained based in a mill in Bolton, and many of its most celebrated drivers including Brian Redman and Jim Crawford were also Lancastrians. Many of Chevron's notable customers were also from the North of England including John Bridges (the "B" in the Chevron type numbers marks not Bennett's name but Bridges' financial contribution to the company), Digby Martland, and John Lepp.

Derek Bennett
Derek Bennett was born in 1933 in Manchester; he was brought up in Prestwich. He was a largely self-taught, intuitive engineer and a talented amateur racing driver.

In his early years Bennett took a keen interest in model aircraft, in which field he excelled. He took an apprenticeship in mechanical and electrical engineering before becoming a mechanic, but he soon fell in with motor racing scene in the North of England, initially in local stock-car racing events.

Bennett soon graduated to building, maintaining and also driving racing cars for himself and other local enthusiasts, and established himself as a competitive driver at club level, particularly in the Bennett Special, running in a series for 1172cc Ford powered cars; he later moved into the Clubmans category. Bennett also built a one-off Formula Junior car which was only a modest success - rear-engined competition from Lotus and Cooper was more than a match for this and the era of the special-builder in FJ was over.

By 1965 there were sufficient requests for replicas of his Clubmans car that establishing himself as a constructor seemed feasible. Aided by a small staff of like-minded enthusiasts (particularly Derek's friend and assistant Paul Owens) for a decade and a half Chevron produced successful, beautiful racing cars.

Derek Bennett never proceeded beyond Formula 3 in his own driving but remained quick enough to test and develop many of his cars, especially at the nearby Oulton Park and Aintree.

Bennett was working on a Formula 1 Chevron when killed in a hang-gliding accident in 1978.

Chevron cars
Chevron was particularly noted for its small-capacity sports cars and its Formula Two, Formula Three and Formula 5000 single seaters. Although a Chevron F5000 did beat a representative Formula One field once in a race open to both categories (Peter Gethin at the Race of Champions in 1973), the marque never seriously addressed F1; one F1 car was built but not finished in Bennett's lifetime and when complete was run only in the national-level Aurora F1 championship in Britain.

Although the first Chevrons were developments of Derek Bennett's Clubmans special (Clubmans was a British national formula for front-engined open-top sports cars with Ford engines) the firm's customers soon started looking to more ambitious racing, and a line of Gran Turismo cars was soon established with the B3 (early type numbers were applied retrospectively when the cars were homologated for Group 4/5 racing) which developed into a line of successful BMW and Ford-powered cars capable of competing internationally in the two-litre sports car class. The replacement for these cars was the beautiful B16, but driver Brian Redman pointed out that with heavy coupé bodywork it would be beaten on most circuits by lighter open-topped 'spyders' from marques like Abarth. The B16 Spyder was introduced, with a body inspired by Porsche 908 Spyder (which Redman also drove!) and this started a long line of successful two-litre sports racers (B19, B21, B23, B26, B31...).

Chevron was active in single seater formulae during this period, concentrating mostly upon Formula Two and Formula Atlantic (aka SCCA Formula B) with minor variants of the same basic design, and with occasional forays into Formula Three.

The heyday of the marque ran through to the late 1970s and ended with Derek Bennett's death after a hang-gliding accident in 1978; Chevron continued in its original form owned by Derek's sisters for a couple of years with Tony Southgate as 'consultant designer' then passed into other hands - some new cars were manufactured. Several key Chevron employees also worked on the short-lived Maurer Formula Two cars.

Chevrons in historic racing
Chevrons are popular cars in historic racing and various businesses still refettle and supply spares for the cars. A roadgoing replica of the B2 Clubmans car has just been launched.

r cars==The Cars== The following models of Chevron were built. Known not to be complete - someone else please add post-Bennett cars that are missing!.

Superstition
The reader will note that there are no B11, B22, B33, B44 -- Derek Bennett was involved in an accident at Oulton Park to which the number 11 was variously connected, and as a result of this acquired a superstition about using the number, and its multiples. This superstition extended to the numbering of individual chassis, with no genuine Chevron car numbered in a multiple of 11 - any 'Chevron' chassis with one of these numbers should have its provenance examined with great care!