[Chris Townsend]

Bryan

You are wonderful mine of information! I think we need to pace that one finger, and also not spoil me with too much history at once. I will try and find some more about Colin Simpson and his ownership of the car. I've got his purchase of the car from either Autosport or Motoring News, I'll have to check my notes.

I have found another 74B that went down under, to NZ, which might help with your mystery car. This is the ex-Ted Wentz Wella car which was raced by Alan Crocker in 76/77. Crocker was a Kiwi who raced the car briefly in the 76 Indyatlantic series and then used it in the 1977 Tasman. He appeared with it at Bay Park and the Motoring News report checks it as ex-Wentz.

I don't know the number of this car because I don't know who [if anyone] has the sales records for March Atlantics. But I can have a good stab because it's the Wella car. Wentz had won the Wella FF1600 championship in '73 and turned up to the prizegiving, expecting to collect a small cheque, to find a fully kitted out Atlantic, because Wella had decided without telling him, to back him the following year. [Why could I never find a sponsor like that? Okay, I never placed better than 6th or 7th, maybe that was why.]
Since this was in December '73 and since Motoring News calls the car 'the first customer 74B' as opposed to a prototype which would perhaps have a U or R prefix from March, I've always thought of this as 73B-1.

The Musetti cars are a nightmare, since they were always described as being at least a model newer than they actually were. I know he ran 752-15 with a GAA V6 in the back in '76/77 [ex Walkinshaw and ex Kuwashima in F2] and that in 75 he had the Matthews 73B. By 76 he has two cars one described as a 75B and the other as a 742. I think the Matthews car is under the 75B and that a 732 tub features in the 742, but who really knows. Maybe I'll have to track him down. [Interesting guy, was a stunt driver for films who did the classic Mini sequence in the Italian Job.]