John Watson: The Derek Bennett I knew

I first met Derek Bennett in 1965 when he brought over the original Chevron Clubmans car to Northern Ireland,  raced it at Kirkistown, then took it down to Dunboyne. As a Clubmans car the B1 just left everything else in its wake. It was all in alloy, not even painted. A colleague of mine, Gerry Kinnane, who raced himself, got to know Derek and the  car was maintained  in Gerry’s workshop  just off the Falls Road  in Belfast. And that’s where I met Derek and Paul Owens.

Derek just seemed to be someone who was a very clever, intuitive engineer – and a very good driver also. He stepped away from  the driving and focused on developing the company. The B8 was such an outstanding owner/driver GT car.  If you think of the days when Brabham was making Formula 2 and Formula 3 customer cars, to me Chevron was the sports cars equivalent: well-constructed cars that were made for the private entrant to be able to go out and compete. And Derek built them to be safe too. They didn’t need  a nut-and-bolt rebuild after every event either.

I think Derek is underrated, and I would call Chevron a self-effacing brand. It didn’t have someone who was an in-your-face designer shouting from the highest mountain, “Look at me, look at my cars.” It came from Bolton, and everything about Derek in nature was from that part of the country. If anything, Paul was the more upfront character, certainly at a race  track as the go-to guy. The name and the brand deserves more recognition. I mean, whoever built a racing car in Bolton, for  God’s sake?