BEVAN IMPUDENCE REINCARNATED
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
