Now available for Kindle
Chevron: The Derek Bennett Story
by David Gordon
DAVID GORDON'S acclaimed book Chevron: The Derek Bennett Story is now available in Kindle ebook format.
First published in hardback in 1991, the book tells the story of Derek Bennett, an ordinary man with an extraordinary talent, who started out mending road cars in a lock-up garage in the back streets of Salford in Northern England and became one of the world’s most successful builders of racing cars.
The success story of the Chevron marque became closely entwined with the success of the drivers who raced the cars in the 1960s and 1970s. Among them were no fewer than six future Formula 1 world champions — Niki Lauda, Alain Prost, Jody Scheckter, James Hunt, Keke Rosberg and Alan Jones.
Derek Bennett was a quiet, unassuming and immensely practical man, who designed and built racing cars that looked like racing cars were supposed to look and that were almost guaranteed to win races.
The irrepressible driving force behind the wheel of Chevron Cars, he commanded the undying respect and loyalty of his workforce and drivers. His lack of any formal qualifications made his natural genius all the more impressive and when he combined his intuitive engineering abilities with his skills as a racing driver the results were formidable.
The modern-day fairy tale of Derek’s rise to the top was brought to a tragic end when he was killed in a freak hang gliding accident in 1978 at the age of 44. But, almost 50 years on, the cars he designed and built in an old mill in Bolton, Lancashire are treasured by enthusiasts and raced in historic events around the world.
Journalist David Gordon was in a unique position to be able to tell the Derek Bennett story. As a teenager, growing up in Manchester, he spent many hours at race meetings and at the Chevron factory, keeping records of the cars and recording their successes in scrapbooks of press cuttings. When he joined the staff of Motoring News, he continued to chart the progress of Chevron first hand and he persuaded Derek Bennett to overcome his usual reluctance to face the press and give him a rare interview for the paper to mark Chevron’s 10th anniversary.
Set against a backdrop of British and international motor racing in the 1960s and 70s, the book also provides fascinating insights into the careers of numerous drivers who raced Chevrons as they made their way towards Formula 1.
Grand Prix drivers who won races in Chevrons on their way to Formula 1 success include John Watson, Derek Warwick, Riccardo Patrese, Jochen Mass, Elio de Angelis, Gunnar Nilsson, David Purley, Peter Gethin and Brian Redman.
Patrese drove a Chevron to victory in the Italian and European Formula 3 championships in 1976, while de Angelis claimed the Italian title the following year. At the same time Rupert Keegan and Derek Daly gave Chevron back-to-back British F3 titles. Among Chevron’s other champions was eventual Formula 1 team boss Eddie Jordan, who took the 1978 Irish Formula Atlantic Championship after a string of race wins.
Picking up the story 12 years after Derek Bennett’s death, David Gordon travelled many thousands of miles to trace the people who knew and worked with Derek. His book tells the Derek Bennett story and that of his brainchild Chevron Cars, charting the contributions of the many people who played a part in the company’s meteoric rise to success, and explaining why it all happened the way it did.