MARCH 707
Robin Herd and Max Mosley founded March in 1969. Thanks to the promise of a good wage, they had lured Chris Amon away from Ferrari to drive their new March 701 in the 1970 F1 championship.
But, they were short of cash. So they offered him to build a sportscar that Amon could use in the lucrative Can-Am series in North-America so he could earn some prize money. The New- Zealander liked the idea, maybe already thinking about his own team in the near future,
Amon recruited two mates from down under: Bruce Wilson, his mechanic and friend who had run his cars in the Tasman championship and his buddy Chris Charles. When they arrived in England on may, they only saw an aluminium monocoque made by John Thompson. They had to work day and night to build the 707/1.
The car was pretty simple. The chassis was an aluminium monocoque with magnesium firewalls at the front and the rear with similar suspension configuration as the March 701. Suspensions were conventional, front, with double wishbone and rear, with twin lower links, single upper link, twin trailing arms. The 4 fuel cells could contain 90 gallons of fuel. The engine was fixed to the monococque and supported by a steel subframe. The engine itself was a Chevrolet aluminium V8, assembled and serviced by Chapparal in Texas with power range from 680-720 horsepower. The engine was fitted to a Hewland LG600 four speed gearbox. The Group 7 regulations did not contain weight limits, but the weight was estimated to be around 700 kg.
The car was quite wide, measuring 2.13 meters (a McLaren M8D from 1967 measured barely 2 m). Herd had made the design so wide to accommodate the huge 17-inch rear wheels under the bodywork. The front wheels were 12.25 inches in width. The car had an unusual front end with its wide radiator and spoilers (some hints to the 701), hanging some 1.22 meters from the front axle. As a results, the car needed hard springs at the front to stop the car from drooping to the ground under braking. That made more need for downforce at the rear.
Amon tested the car in Silverstone without any bodywork.
Hans Gunther Lehmann, publisher of the German magazine Deutsche Auto Zeitung saw the car and wanted to buy a 707 for Helmut Kelleners in order to race the car in the new Interserie. He also insisted that Bruce Wilson would accompany the car for the races. Herd could not protest because he needed the cash very much and gave him 707/1.
The real debut for the 707 was in the first three races of the newly formed Interserie championship 1970 at the Norisring, Hockenheim and Croft.
In the first heat at the Norisring, Kelleners got to the finish line, almost unconscious. The hot air from the front-mounted radiator blowing in his face the whole race. For the second heat, the mechanics made a ventilation system with plastic hoses, but a broken driveshaft ended his race.
In Hockenheim, the March was on pole-position, but came in the pits after a few laps with a broken exhaust. He did continued, but was disqualified for exterior help after being pushed off by a competitor. A week later at Croft, the March 707 got his first win beating all-time favourite (and later winning the championship) Jürgen Neuhaus in the Gesipa Porsche 917.
The 707/1 did only five laps in the Keimola race and returned to the championship for the last race of the season; the Hockenheim 300. Here Kelleners got pole-position again and won the race in 2 hours and 42 minutes, again in front of Neuhaus. Helmut Kelleners was third overall in the Championship 1970.
In the season, Kelleneers was also active in other races with this 707 where he scored also two wins.
All the information they gathered throughout the season was put together in the chassis 707/2 for Chris Amon. He took the red coloured STP backed car to the Canam after the Italian F1 race. He participated in round 8 of the championship which was largely dominated by McLaren and the superb M8D Chevy. Dan Gurney, Denny Hulme and Peter Gethin had almost won every race.
Amon had some suspension failures in practice, but ended third on the grid. In the race he ran second for a while, then, despite fuel pick up problems while running third – one tank wasn’t emptying into the other – Chris was classified fifth behind Hulme, Gethin, Revson and Jim Adams’ Ferrari 512P. Then it was off to Laguna Seca. He finished fourth, coping with spongy brakes and in the last race at Riverside he finished fourth again after an urgent pitstop when he was running third.
Chassis 707/2 stayed in American hands, while 707/1 was rebuilt and named 717. The front end and the striking spoiler was redesigned and the front-mounted radiator was replaced by two side-mounted units just in front of the engine. The engine was no longer serviced by Chapparal. The car got a light-blue paint and run by the German Felder Racing Team, still with Kelleners at the wheel. Target was the Interserie championship 1971 again.
The first race at Imola was not great. A P04 in the first heat and clutch issues and a DNF in the second. With a new front end, the car was in Zolder. A sixth place in the first heat and a DNF in the second one. Same story in Hockenheim due to engine problems.
In the two races at Keimola, Kelleners got up to third. There was however a rumour that he had used the in Finland legal 104-octane fuel for the Chevy engine. Because there were again retirements in Imola and Hockenheim. A disappointing season after all.
The 717/1 was sold to Austrian racer Stefan Sklenar, who raced it in the Interserie 1972 and 1973 without any success. At the end of the year it was brought down to the original specifications. In 1995, the chassis is bought by Chris Chiles who raced it in the ISC from 1996 and in 2002 it entered the Orwell Supersportscarcup thanks to R.Dodkins Motorsport. In 2003, it was bought by Geoff Farmer, who raced it in the same series.
A third chassis was constructed for the Canam Gordon Dewar/JND Racing. Now in museum Rosso Bianco or at Lowman Den Haag.
707/2 was bought by John Mastroianni, USA (1973) and went then to Bud Bennet/RM Motorsports in1992. Charlie Agg of Trojan (the company that built the customer McLaren Can-Am cars) fcarefully restored the car to full running order and raced it for several seasons with great success. He equipped the March with a carefully tuned big block V8, good for a staggering 868 bhp and just over 1000 Nm. In 2001 he sold the car to Peter Schleifer, who also frequently raced it in the Orwell Supersports championship. The current, Italian owner Tullio Matteo Maria has continued to race and demonstrate the massive March at events all over Europe.
