Timewarp Chevron B8 still has race-winning pace

The car’s history, right back to its 1968 build, is known. When it was just four years old it was put into storage for 20 years on the Mezzanine office roof of a transport company, which is why it survived so true to its original form.

It’s the only left-hand-drive version of the Bolton-built B8, originally supplied to Germany with a spares package but no engine. Driver Nikolaus Killenberg was a friend of Dieter Fischer of BMW Motorsport, and he was the most likely source of the BMW 2002 engine that the car received when it reached Germany. It actually started life with a 1,600cc engine for its first outing at the Nürburgring before moving on to the 2.0-litre engine it continued with. It was in that guise that it competed at 1,000km races until 1970.

The Chevron’s next owner was a Dutchman who lived close to Zandvoort who used it mostly for club racing at his local circuit. “The only accident we’ve seen is a picture of it on a pick-up truck coming out of the paddock at Zandvoort,” says Mitchell. “It just did a bit of damage to the front left-hand-side. After that the bonnet was diagonally black on one side, rather than being all white, because he obviously thought rather than matching the paint, they’d just paint it black.”

It was when he stopped racing the car in 1972 that it went into storage for 20 years. Many similar cars underwent roof chops in the years after for greater race eligibility and start money, but this B8 was safe from such a fate having been squirrelled away.

The B8 eventually changed hands and was running again in 2012. Mitchell bought the car in 2017 and has since been keen to maintain its originality. The original engine, for instance, has been put into storage and a substitute put in its place. Just as it was in 1968, there is no speedometer presumably because a km/h dial was impossible to source in Bolton. Mitchell has met Chevron apprentice of the time, David Taylor, who did succeed in buying a left-hand-drive steering rack from a main dealer.

Prior to his first outing, a post-lockdown race at Brands Hatch in 2020, Mitchell spent time going through the B6 and restoring it where necessary. “The car was so original, it came with the original shock absorbers and the original engine from a BMW 2002,” he says. 

That original engine has been put on the shelf for safe keeping and another engine, producing around 233PS (172kW), has been built for racing. The crazed rear bodywork also needed replacing, but the rest is original barring that front end that was replaced in period. It’s such a timewarp it even came with the original fitted car cover, complete with its maker’s name and contact details.

The Chevron has been a Goodwood regular since its return trackside, driven by Mitchell and his sons, Ben and Sam. The little 2.0-litre B6 often finds itself up against much more powerful competition.

“It’s very light, very nimble, and our advantage really is into corners, braking and round the corners. It’s a really good balanced car through the corners, so that’s where it gains. It makes really good racing because it’s sort of David versus Goliath.”

And sometimes it goes the way of the smaller car, as Ben Mitchell proved when he claimed outright victory in the 2024 Surtees Trophy at the Goodwood Revival. Since then, Ben’s brother Sam has been driving the car and his first experience of a standing start was on the front row of the grid.

Our interview took place at a pre-83MM test day in preparation for the Bruce McLaren Trophy, where Sam commented: “I don’t know what it is about Goodwood, it’s quite a daunting track, and with this car you kind of need to sort of grab it by the scruff of the neck to make it work properly. You have to use the power to get the front end to go where you want it to so you’ve got to commit quite a lot. It’s great fun. It’s beautifully balanced and it works really well.”

Looking ahead to race day, he adds: “I think it’s going to be very difficult down the straights to beat the Can-Am cars. I found last year, I got stuck behind GT40s because they're much faster down the straights, but we’re half the weight of a GT40, so it’s much better through the corners. You come into Woodcote and you think I could make a move, but you’re quite a long way back, and if it goes wrong, it goes wrong. 

“So sometimes discretion is the best part of valour. Can-Am cars have a lot of power going through skinny tyres. We just do our own race, be consistent with reasonable pace, then it might come like it did for my brother a couple of years ago. He was, I think, 11^th with six minutes to go, and then suddenly he's in the lead, and won the race.”

Mitchell adds: “We’re up against it this year, but as in previous years you don’t know what will happen, so you’ve got to finish, be consistent, do your best and hope for the best.”

Whatever the result turns out to be is really a by-product of a fun family weekend. “We come to have fun,” says Sam. “It’s a family affair. All of us muck in and help. We run ourselves. Dad does the majority of the work on the car and looks after it. We’re not trying to be professional racing drivers. It’s just great fun and Goodwood encapsulates that and puts on an amazing show every year.”

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Photography by Joe Harding.