race open to both categories (Peter Gethin at the Race of Champions in 1973), the marque never seriously addressed F1; one F1 car was built but not finished in Bennett's lifetime and when complete was run only in the national-level Aurora F1 championship in Britain. Bennett was notable in his design genius for the first car with a diffuser - Chevron GT, first car with a crash box (called a "nose frame" in its day) Chevron B16. Although the first Chevrons were developments of Derek Bennett's Clubmans special (Clubmans is a British national formula for front-engined open-top sports cars with Ford engines) the firm's customers soon started looking to more ambitious racing, and a line of gran turismo cars was soon established with the B3 (early type numbers were applied retroactively when the cars were homologated for Group 4 and 5 racing) which developed into a line of successful BMW and Ford-powered cars capable of competing internationally in the two-litre sports car class. The replacement for these cars was the B16, but driver Brian Redman pointed out that with heavy coupé bodywork it would be beaten on most circuits by lighter open-topped spyders from marques like Abarth. The B16 spyder was introduced, with a body inspired by the Porsche 908 spyder (which Redman also drove) and this started a long line of successful two-litre sports racers including the B19, B21, B23, B26, and B31. Chevron was active and very successful in single-seater formulae during this period, concentrating mostly upon Formula 3 Formula Two and Formula Atlantic (aka SCCA Formula B) with minor variants of the same basic design. Nearly every Formula 1 driver of the 1970s drove a Chevron in their early careers including Niki Lauda. Chevron was notable for its proud Lancastrian nature - unlike the rest of the British racing car industry which tended to be based in an arc running from South West London, the old Brooklands circuit and Heathrow Airport round to Silverstone, Chevron remained based in a mill in Bolton, and many of its most celebrated drivers, including Brian Redman and Jim Crawford were also Lancastrians. Many of Chevron's notable customers were also from the north of England including John Bridges, Digby Martland, and John Lepp. The heyday of the marque ran through to the late 1970s and ended with Derek Bennett's death after a hang-gliding accident in 1978; Chevron continued in its original form