1977 CHEVRON B38
Current owner: Hugh Price
It’s a well-known car “It was Derek Warwick’s car for British F3 in 1977, B38 chassis 5, and he had a reasonable amount of success with it in the first half of the season. But in about August he swapped it for a Ralt RT1. Nelson Piquet had a Ralt and was beginning to dominate and so Warwick changed to a Ralt. When I spoke to Derek about it, he said the Ralt was just easier to set-up so that’s why he made the change.”
It had various owners “He didn’t race the Chevron for very long. They kept the car for a while as it was re-advertised by Warwick Trailers in 1978. It then had various owners. A chap called Frankie Boodram, who was a car dealer in Trinidad, had it. I never found out if he took it back to Trinidad and raced it there.”
Price bought it from Germany “Keith Norman raced it in the 1990s then he sold it to a German baker called Willi Schapmann and I’ve had it since 2006. I bought it from Willi and it was in a pretty good state. I went to see it in Dusseldorf on a cold day in January: we took the trailer with us and brought it back.”
He’s raced it extensively “It was still in yellow but had a new nose and a new engine cover in blue. It didn’t have any stickers on it so we put it back to period livery. I’ve raced it every year since 2006 and I’ve raced it at Monaco twice and done some of the French races as well as Classic F3 in Britain.”
It is very original “The tub is certainly original. I bent the nose frame at Brands this year and that was probably the original frame. Some of the bodywork has been changed. It has got a big scratch on the roll hoop and Marcus Pye [ Autosport journalist] told me that Derek rolled it at Goodwood in testing.”
He likes Classic F3 “I had some problems with the Toyota engine in 2018 but I’ll race it again next year. Generally it has been a very good, reliable car. You get a lot of bang for your buck in Classic F3. They are quick cars and don’t take too much maintaining.”