Brian Martin from Dagenham, Essex, and later Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England, began building one-off sports-racing cars for his own use as a racing driver, leading up to the 1969 BM6 model GT Coupé in which he won at least nine times in the home season, exploiting the torque and power of a BMW 2-litre 4-cylinder engine to the full. In 1970 he produced the BM7 open cockpit version in which he scored no fewer than 14 home victories at club and national racing level, and generally shone amongst fierce competition from Chevron, Astra and Nomad cars.

In 1970 the BM7 driven by Brian Martin himself qualified on the front row of the starting grid at London’s Crystal Palace circuit, ‘Autosport’ magazine reporting: “Martin made up the front row with the pretty Martin BM7 in spite of its two-year old and rather tired BMW engine; evidently the car would be a real flyer with a Ford FVC engine…”.

Brian Martin Developments subsequently produced the BM8 which competed in the 1971 European 2-Litre Championship series, running at significant International level. These Martin cars were very well-made, nicely designed and highly competitive in the right hands.

The driver/constructor himself had bought his first car – an MG TA – at the age of 18. He used it for sprint events but wanted more power so installed a Ford 105E engine with which he began circuit racing in 1962. His MG-Ford hybrid became known as the Martin BM1. His replacement BM2 was a Lotus 7 modified with independent rear suspension and a Diva body, while the BM3 featured a Martin-designed body on that same chassis. The Martin BM4 was a 1967 GT car, BM5 a 1968 GT Coupé powered by a 1500cc pushrod Ford engine (later a twin-cam), while BM6 was the 1969 GT Coupé with 2-litre BMW engine and Hewland FT200 transaxle, and the BM7 originally its open sports-prototype replacement for 1970. This particular car now appears to combine the BM7 chassis with the Coupé body and Geoff Richardson Ford BDA/BDG 4-cylinder engine…in effect seeking the best of all worlds.
This most interesting Chevron-baiter is offered with full FIA papers, having been driven in Historic events by the present owner over the past ten years, contesting such events as the International Super Sports Cup rounds at Silverstone, Donington Park, Anderstorp in Sweden, Monza in Italy, Brno in the former Czechoslovakia, the Nurburgring and Hockenheim in Germany, Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium, Zandvoort in Holland and so on in a most impressive list of enjoyable racing venues.

The owner-driver of the Martin BM7 offered here has competed over an extremely long career, dating from 1965 to 2002 including the 1970s European InterSerie Championship – the European equivalent of unrestricted-capacity CanAm Challenge Championship racing – and also in the European Mountain Championship competition.

This car’s recently-rebuilt Geoff Richardson BDA 4-cylinder 2-litre engine has, we understand, since had only some six hours running and race finishing on its record. All other car systems and features are described as being in “OK” order, characterised by the vendor as being “new standard”. The transmission fitted is a Hewland FT200, itself a desirable and valuable item. This competition Coupé was last restored to very high standards in 1993 and is presently offered at a realistically-priced level.

It is a competition Coupé which offers a capable owner/driver a potentially very competitive 2-litre proposition with which to confront the uniform fleets of Chevron and similar designs which currently populate the increasingly popular Historic 2-litre classes. Certainly for a race promoter seeking “something different” for his race entry, this Martin BM7 has much to offer.