Acheson's Sauber-Mercedes C9 Test Sparked by Goodwood Encounter
This Sauber’s owner had no idea he was sitting across from Kenny Acheson during an encounter at Goodwood, which led to this test
Kenny Acheson’s return to the cockpit of a Sauber-Mercedes came about entirely by chance. Invited to a corporate event at the Goodwood Festival of Speed last summer in his capacity as a businessman working in the cosmetics industry rather than as an ex-racing driver, he happened to sit opposite the owner of this particular C9, historic racer Rupert Clevely.
“Kenny asked me what I did and I ended up telling him that I raced a bit,” explains Clevely, who has also owned Lancia LC2 and Peugeot 905 Group C cars. “He asked me what car I drove, I said it was a Sauber. When I told him it was a C9, he said, ‘Wow, I finished second at Le Mans in one of those’. I had no idea who he was when we started talking.”
One thing led to another, and suddenly Acheson was digging out his old overalls for a short test in Clevely’s C9.
The car was purchased from the defunct Donington Collection by Clevely. An unraced spare car in period, chassis #89 C9 A1 became a display vehicle at the end of the design’s competitive life early in 1990. The car came with an engine and gearbox, but with no bellhousing between them, while other missing parts included the injection plenum and the rear suspension rockers.
What the car did come with, however, was a set of bodywork that had been used at Le Mans. It is believed that the majority of the panels came off the Le Mans winner, while the 04B chalked inside the nose suggests that this particular section was used on Acheson’s second-placed car, chassis #04.
BBM Sport, formerly Chamberlain-Synergy, readied it for Peter Auto’s Group C Racing series. That meant reverse engineering components, something it was well qualified to do having previously run another C9, as well as the Sauber-built Mercedes C11. The car was ready in time to run up the hill at Goodwood last summer and the plan is for Clevely to race the C9 a couple of times in the coming season. “I’m a massive Group C fan,” he says, “and in my opinion this is the coolest looking of them all.”