1970 March 702 Formula 2 Roller
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Serial Number: 702-04 (stamped on frame near dash) Logbooks: none Condition: restoration project Price: Offers over f400,000 BEF (approx. $12,000 USD) Location: Belgium |
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DescriptionThis car was supplied by March to BMW Motorsport in 1970 to evaluate against their own chassis for Formula 2. It is the only 702 which was fitted with the BMW instead of the Cosworth FVA and this was done by the March works.The current owner purchased the car as a rolling chassis without engine/gearbox. Due to lack of space, the owner removed the corners, radiator, bodywork and side pods and stored it in the awkward position you can see on the colour pictures. All the parts are there with perhaps the exception of the oil tank, but it is amazingly original and unmolested and the more so a rare find. It has one set of original March wheels. There is no chassis plate but the chassis is stamped 702-4 near the dashboard. This car cannot be mistaken with any other Ford engined 702 if you look at the engine frame which is specific to the BMW engine with the mounting vertical side tubes located at the front and not in the middle of the engine bay, as well as with the connections for the water hoses on the chassis. These details prove that this is indeed the genuine article. This particular car is well documented in the The Story of March - Four Guys and a Telephone by Mike Lawrence. The period workshop photo appears in the book (page 27) and shows the car being built in Bicester in 1970. Although the legend under the photo describes it as a 701, it is clearly a 702 spaceframe fitted with the unmistakable BMW engine. The story of this car is also documented in the book (page 32). |
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Mr Moorkens, at the time the BMW importer in Belgium, saw the car on one of his visits to BMW, sitting in the corner, and bought it. He fitted it with a BMW 2002 engine and hillclimbed it for a few years in Castrol livery. The black and white photo shows the car in period when it was owned and raced by Moorkens. He then lost his BMW import contract and stopped using the car.
It seems trace of the car was lost in unclear circumstances in the mid or late seventies. It resurfaced about 10 years ago and was bought, still in its period Castrol livery and with the same tyres as on the B&W photo, by the current owner as a rolling chassis without engine/gearbox.
