Bevan Imp back on track
The Imps of George Bevan became famous in tin-top competition during the early 1970s. Thanks to the efforts of a small band of enthusiasts, one of the ex-bill Mcgovern title winners has recently returned to the race track
Fifty years ago, Irishman Bill Mcgovern matched Australian Frank Gardner’s back-to-back British Saloon Car Championship titles. But in his case it was from the 1000cc class, driving Imps prepared by George Bevan, doyen of privateer entrants. The following season, 1972, they rewrote the history books, winning all 10 rounds to complete a resounding hat-trick – despite a frosty relationship with Chrysler’s competition department.
Bevan, from the Isle of Dogs in east London, made Chinese restaurant cookers for a living. He and his small team – who worked on both – set exemplary standards. The Lagoon Blue Imps, prepared behind his end-of-terrace council house at St Paul’s Cray, Orpington in a borrowed double garage, were class victors in 28 of the 33 BSCC races they started over the three campaigns!
North London-domiciled furniture man Mcgovern debuted for Bevan in 1969, in an Imp built for son Peter who had stopped. Despite Bill rolling it at Crystal Palace, their partnership gelled. “George was an amazing man – he could make anything on a centre lathe,” recalls Mcgovern. Bevan played the game beautifully. He took an identical spare car to events and ran a pool of practice, qualifying and race engines in rotation.
Mcgovern recalls two races when the team snatched maximum points against the odds: “At Brands Hatch’s 1972 finale, the engine wouldn’t fire in the assembly area, so I went to the back of the grid, angled the car downhill at Clearways and bump-started it. And at the TT I’d had a rear puncture on the first lap. I crawled back to the pits, knowing the spare wheel was a long way away, so we put a wet on the [lighter-loaded] offside rear. It ran to the end, but I had to be careful in left-handers.”
Period Autosport reports note a prodigious output of 108bhp for the lightweight all-alloy 998cc units. This exposed the transmission as the Imps’ Achilles’ heel. The Jack Knight gearboxes (ratios in which were juggled endlessly) coped admirably, but the rubber doughnut driveshaft couplings – which took a pounding given just three bolt engine mountings, and were changed between sessions – were the chain’s weakest link, exacerbated by wide Dunlop tyres. Nonetheless, rivals found slim pickings.
Mike Freeman in the Andrew Mylius Graphics-entered Imp claimed the points at the two Brands Hatch races in 1970 where Mcgovern broke, a rare clutch and engine failure spoiling the British Gp-supporting round. Jeremy Nightingale’s Imp outlasted them at Oulton Park’s Gold Cup, where fumes from gearbox oil leaking onto the exhaust forced Bill to stop. A superb Division 1-dominating 16th overall at Silverstone’s RAC Tourist Trophy enduro (a European Championship round, with strong international entry, paying double points), distanced the challenges of larger capacity aces Gardner (Ford Mustang) and John Fitzpatrick (Escort).
In 1971, Chrysler (formerly Rootes Group) development engineer Bernard Unett – “the best of the Imp drivers,” asserts Mcgovern – and future Special/super Saloon star John Turner got look-ins when Mcgovern broke, at Thruxton and Silverstone’s Martini International Trophy event respectively. At the latter, contact with an Escort burst the front-mounted oil cooler.
Over the three glory years, the Bevan cars’ reliability record was peerless. Particularly since their speed often pitched Mcgovern against the next class up: the 1300cc Ford Escort GTS and Mini Cooper Ss. His 86mph lap records at Snetterton (then with the long Norwich Straight), Oulton Park and Brands Hatch GP, 88mph at Thruxton and Mallory Park, and a staggering 95mph-plus on Silverstone’s GP circuit were impressive. Some eclipsed marks from the previous Group 5 era in which regulations were freer.
Nonetheless, Group 2 led to wider wheelarches, fibreglass
“THE ENGINE WOULDN’T FIRE, SO I ANGLED THE CAR DOWNHILL AT CLEARWAYS AND BUMP-STARTED IT”
bonnet and boot lids, front disc brakes, triple-plate clutches and stronger drive couplings permitted through the 698kg Sunbeam’s homologation – hence existing Hillmans were rebadged advantageously. Peter Bevan, who worked for his dad and wove his magic on cylinder heads in a shed at the bottom of the garden, was in demand. Bevan engines won championships globally.
Peter’s son Jonathan, now 50, is – if anything – even prouder of the extraordinary heritage. Three years ago, he acquired one of the later Bevan Imps – there were four – from the widow of Wolfgang Rische in Germany. During 2020’s COVID-19 lockdown, the Brands Hatch local massaged it back into shape in his double garage, using as many original components as possible. Its lustrous blue finish and delightful original triangular Bevan sticker evidence detailing in his DNA.
With a Goodwood Festival of Speed invitation focusing its completion, the little beauty burst into life for the first time in more than 40 years and was shaken down in torrential rain at Brands in June. Team friend Michael Crees, BTCC’S 2020 Jack
Sears Trophy winner and recent Porsche Supercup racer, and Jonathan’s team-mate Rod Birley had short puddle-jumping runs before the emotional owner took the wheel.
“I’d been looking for a Bevan Imp for years, and spotted it on Facebook in 2018,” he says. “Rische had bought three Imps – ours and two Team Hartwell cars – through my grandad’s agent Hans Sauer. They were piled high in the background of a picture taken in his workshop. I couldn’t believe it, so made contact and set off for Cologne. The intermediary, Thomas Gotschl, is the most honourable gentleman I’ve met. He clearly felt the car belonged back with us and a friendly deal was done.
“It was the barn find enthusiasts all dream of, exactly as it last competed in 1979, still with shell damage. With it were log books recording all its races and hillclimbs. The engine was original, with grandad’s GB stampings, duplicated on the rear mount. There were spares too, so I really lucked in!
“While I can’t say with absolute certainty which of them it is – individual shell details were not recorded – I’m pretty sure it is the one built for the London Motor Show in 1971 and raced [to 14th] in the 1972 TT. After Bill crashed the last car [with twinheadlights per Chrysler’s facelift] badly at Thruxton in 1973, it was substituted, Les Nash having bought the previous Imp. I couldn’t wait to get the car home and start recommissioning it.”
The bodyshell was entrusted to Colin Rooney at CA Restoration, and the engine to Imp guru Andy Jones at Shrigley Engineering.
“Both did incredible jobs,” says Jonathan. Much of the engine is original, but bearings, pistons [Hepolite Powermax] and valve springs were replaced. The crankshafts were initially cast iron – steel came later – running in three main bearings. The Armstrong front dampers and double-adjustable Koni rears are original too. Wheels are 13-inch diameter, run in 7in and
8in (front) and 9in and 10in (rear) widths.
The cockpit is spartan by comparison with today’s touring cars. The rollcage is nothing like as comprehensive, albeit much stiffer than the early hoops that racer John Aley professionalised in the 1960s. “Vic Lee of Corbeau supplied the high-back seat, as [company founder and subsequently DAF Super Saloon racer] Colin Folwell did in period,” recalls Jonathan. “Racing saloons had low-back seats until Bill’s Thruxton crash, after which the RAC changed the regulations.
“An oil leak on the test session was a worry, but [with Goodwood imminent] Andy Jones pulled out all the stops to rectify it. Although I was conscious that I was at the Festival of Speed for the show, not chasing times, I was very nervous,” adds Jonathan. “With the ‘GB72’ cam, there is no power under 4500rpm and 5000-6000 was necessary to get it moving. These Imp engines scream and, with a straight through exhaust and a limit of 9000rpm, it sounded like a little F1 car under the trees.”
Crees had a blast too and, but for the diff tightening as he turned in to the paddock after the final run, the long-dormant racer had delighted spectators anew.
While Bevan did a brilliant job for Chrysler, they did not have a great relationship, beyond him being able to select engine components and buy them at special rates. “George and competitions manager Des O’dell did not get on at all,” remembers Mcgovern. “In the Rootes Group days, George got money.”
Bevan continues: “Grandad loved his independence, but was a nightmare to deal with, very stubborn. When the Imps came to the end of their competitive life, he wanted to move on to the new Hillman Avenger, but Unett [who ultimately won British championships in 1974, 1976 and 1977 in well-specced versions, with controversial ‘Brazilian blocks’] got the gig.”
Bevan switched horses to Volkswagen, running Mcgovern in a sponsored Passat, but it was a disaster, a largely forgotten adjunct to their glory days. “Des O’dell came up to me at
Thruxton in 1973, offering me a deal to race a [works] Avenger the following year,” remembers Mcgovern, “but I said, ‘Sorry,
I’m with George.’ That was that. We knew straight away that we were in trouble. VW needed time to homologate parts.”
Bevan rues: “If they’d hung in there until the Golf GTI arrived, it would have been a very different story. George would have thrown everything at that. At the cooker business’s height in the 1970s, selling two a month paid the business overheads, but he was doing 20 and always had a full order book. He was making a lot of money but spent it all on racing, cruises and holidays in Spain – while living in his council house!
“[Half a century on] I love tinkering away quietly on the Imp and my Honda [Integra] with mates. That way, I’m able to compete without it costing a lot. I prefer the preparation to the racing, but the Goodwood experience was fantastic. They looked after us so well and I couldn’t believe the reaction to the car. It was incredible. I was invited to take part in the opening runs up the hill, and arriving at the top paddock just being among famous cars and drivers was unreal. A great privilege and everything I’d wanted for the Imp, which was surrounded by enthusiasts all weekend, perhaps more so than more familiar BTCC cars?
“I have been offered a lot of money for it, but that’s not the point. It’s not something I could race competitively today, but a tribute to grandad and dad’s achievements with Bill, part of our family’s history. It’s my pension I suppose, but I do love a project and am always looking towards the next one. I’m really excited that we were able to get dad’s Austin A40 back and that its restoration is progressing well. Now that’s a car we will be able to race and enjoy together when it’s back on track next year.”
“IT WAS A BARN FIND ENTHUSIASTS ALL DREAM OF, EXACTLYAS IT
LAST COMPETED IN 1979”