Friday,

27th of February – Today would be the late Peter Revson’s 70th birthday and that’s the cue to bring up this shot of a McLaren M20 Revvie drove in the 1972 Can-Am series. Admittedly I was more of a Porsche fan and the awesome 917/10 – and thereafter the stunning 917/30 – was my favourite. But I did think the M20 was a stylish spyder. Pity it had that normally aspirated Big Block V8 lump, but still nice to remember. Erm, by the way. do you know who was Revvie’s team-mate in the McLaren CanAm team?

27/2/1939, Peter Jeffrey Revson is born in New York City, USA.

Peter Revson and his younger brother Doug grew up surrounded by money, as their father had been a co-owner in the Revlon cosmetics company and had sold off his shares in 1958. Peter showed up in Europe in 1963 to take part in Formula Junior races and by the end of the year had had his first taste of F1 in the Gold Cup at Oulton Park. He founded Revson Racing, run by Reg Parnell, and entered a Lotus-BRM in 11 events in 1964, including six World Championship races. Lacking impressive results he turned his main attention the CanAm series for the next five years. Although his university buddy Timmy Mayer was killed in a round of the 1964 Tasman series and Doug also lost his life in an F3 race in Denmark in 1967, Peter’s passion for racing remained unchanged and he continued to pursue his ambitions. In 1969 he finished 5th at the Indy 500 and won an IndyCar race at Indianapolis Raceway Park in a Brabham-Repco. He then had a comeback in F1 with the Yardley McLaren team in 1972 and had his finest moments in winning the British and Canadian Grands Prix the following year. He switched to the Shadow F1 team in 1974 but was killed during testing sessions at Kyalami circuit in the week prior to the South African Grand Prix. His Shadow suffered a front suspension failure and the car slid off the track and underneath the guard rails killing Peter Revson instantly.

Born: 27th of February 1939 in New York, USA
Died: 22nd of March 1974 at Kyalami circuit, South Africa, aged 35.

27/2/1960, Ettore Chimeri dies.

Italian by birth but residing in Venezuela with his family, Ettore Chimeri competed all over South America. His only Formula 1 appearance happened in the 1960 Argentine Grand Prix in Buenos Aires, driving a rather old and run down Maserati 250F. Unsurprisingly the car didn’t make it through the entire race distance. While practicing for the Cuban Gran Premio Libertad near Havana two weeks later he suffered a spectacular crash with a Ferrari sports car. Despite having beeng rescued alive and flown immediately to a hospital by helicopter, Chimery passed away in the afternoon due to the seriousness of his injuries.

Born: 4th of June 1921 in Lodi, Italy.
Died: 27th of February 1960 in Havana, Cuba, aged 38.