Description
2018 FIA Historic Sportscar Championship winning Chevron B8
The stunning and iconic Chevron B8 race cars first appeared in 1968, usually with BMW 2-litre engines, and was homologated into Group 4 from 1 March 1968 on the basis that 50 were built. To help the numbers every rebuild counted as a new car - a habit that would continue into the B16, B19 and even the B21. The chassis plate on this B8 indicates that this car is chassis number DBE 70/ 023. In addition, on the right hand side of the chassis, (adjacent to the gearbox cross member) it is stamped 'AM23'. It was customary for Arch Motors, the engineers responsible for building the B8 chassis, to stamp the chassis in this way. Whilst we cannot verify the early history, it is worth remembering that cars were often renumbered as described above.
Previous owners listed in the 2015 auction catalogue include Jean Blaton (run with the assistance of Chevron Racing Cars/ Roger Andreason), Laurent Dutoya, Christian and Michael Quiniou. The 2006 FIA HTP papers show the car with Red bodywork, a BMW 2 litre engine and Hewland FT 200 gearbox. At that time the papers state the owner as the well-known French Driver, Ludovic Caron.
David Smithies, the previous owner of Chassis DBE 023, owned the car since May 2007 purchasing it from Paul Ingram. Since 2007 he campaigned the car in European and UK Historic events. He changed livery to blue, refurbished the chassis, suspension and transmission.
The current owner, front running historic racer Julian Thomas, bought the car from David Smithies in 2018 and had the car run by Denis Welch Motorsport for three years before moving it to Wolfe Manufacturing in 2021 where the car had a full, bare chassis rebuild. It has been maintained on a no expense spared basis since purchase.
Julian Thomas won outright the 2018 FIA Masters Historic Sportscar Championship with numerous Class poles, 1st places and Fastest laps.
Since 2018 the current owner has continued to race Masters Sportscar Championship with numerous Class wins and fastest laps as well as an outright win in 2022 May HSCC Guards Trophy and Peter Auto Mugello round in 2022. The last race was Silverstone Classic 2024.
The engine has 4 hours on it since rebuild, the gearbox 1 race since rebuild. The car comes with a complete spare set of magnesium rims, VBOX HD2 + Laptimer
Fully prepped and ready to do a full season.
