March 73B - 74B - 75B - 76B - 77B

[Chris Townsend]

The Melville 76B is described by Motoring News as the car raced by Brambilla the previous year at Trois Rivieres.

[David McKinney]

Originally posted by Chris Townsend

The Melville 76B is described by Motoring News as the car raced by Brambilla the previous year at Trois Rivieres.

Could be

[Armco Bender]

Hey this is neat the whole history of NZ Atlantics.Didn't Fred Opert bring 2 cars(presmably Chevrons) to NZ for the 1979 series but were never raced,what ever happened to them?.The only other Chevron I can think of that came here is the one Huub Rothengatter drove.
The Alan Crocker March,didn't he race that in 1978?,I remember he did a spectactular roll just past the start line in the first heat of the NZGP and skated upside down along the track in it.
The vague histories of some of the NZ cars could be down to the tax laws at the time,many cars were shuttled in and out of the country to avoid the taxman,presumably some of the IDs were a bit "fudged" to confuse the revenue gatherers.Not something people would want to make to public!.
"MotorAction" the motorsport newspaper of the day had very detailed histories of all the Atlantic cars in the '77 and '78 series at the time,sadly my copies have long since disappeared.

[Bryan Miller]

Hell this is going so fast so quickly,
March , Ian Grob in N.Z. Both cars tubs built up 1 for 1978 series , other not till 1980 in Australia .
Both cars have ch. pl. stamped as 77B C1 and C2 , being for Gary Clare who apparently drove the March spares van inU.K./Europe and did the deal with Ian Grob , so technically they are not true Marches .

A story connected with the C2 car was that it was ex James King tub , but I checked this with Duncan , and was advised that the King tub was 773-41 Lightweight, whereas the C2 tub is 773-66 ex no history.

For the record I am the Senior Historic Eligibility Officer for C.A.M.S in Oz , handling the post 1960 Racing and Sports Racing cars and have been for some years.

My brother will contact soon re. his March which is 772-5
, but in N.Z. was always known as 77B , talk about a can of worms .

In the preview for 1974 Atlantic Rd. 1 John Giimeister is is listed with a 73B , ent by Prototype Tooling .
Some of the cars we are talking about may be 'B ' versions but called 742 s because of the furore caused when the factory bought out the long nose side rad. version and told everybody espcially Bob Harper that it was experimental.
My 74B-12 had the update kit fitted by May 1974 , and was on the car when Jones won the British Grand Prix. Atlantic support race , so to gullible motor sport noters , they may have been told all sorts of stories .

It certainly happened over here especially with earlier Brabhams that rec,d B.T.36 style body panels.

[Bryan Miller]

Chris, the 74 March notes, you have all the info on the sheet, nothing held back .
Bobby Brown's 74B-9, I saw a note sometime in 74 Auosport saying this would be last race in U.K. as both driver and car returning to U.S.A.

To Allen Brown, have been looking at your fabulous site for a while now, congratulations and all the Australian end of the cars looks pretty correct.
Re. 74B-5 Coarara, anybody heard of him? Could this have escaped to Swiss hillclimbs or somewhere else?

ARMCOBENDER, I think you need to find another set of Motoraction, afterall you Kiwi's ended up with half these cars all getting mixed up over there, one of you has to help sort it out, and by virtue of being on the forum, you are elected .

Re. 73B, the std.74B's looked the same as 73 cars unless you had fitted the update kit so who would know if it was a 73 or a 74 by looking???
Re. my 74B tub no. typo, should read 732-26, with either an 8 or a B stamped under that.

[Chris Townsend]

I think that the Gillmeister car was probably a 73B though Wes Dawn called it a 74.
Would anyone have similar information on 73B sales to the invaluable document posted here on 74Bs? This would be massively useful in sorting out British and Irish Atlantics as a lot more 73Bs were sold here as new than 74s.

[David McKinney]

AB
I think you're getting Crocker mixed up with Dave Saunders, who was involved in that big Puke accident (with Rex Hart's Surtees and, IIRC, A N Other

I've still got the Motoractions
All the chassis number/history stuff in them was written by.....
David McKinney

[Bryan Miller]

March ex Andy Miedecke 763/77b 763/14 . I spoke to Andy re. this along with Bruce Cary who helped bult it up. This car still owned by Andy and is literally nailed to the wall at his Main Ford dealership at Port Macquarrie on the mid north coast of N.S.W. as I write, this info about 4 weeks old.

[Bryan Miller]

March 75B in Davids list of cars in N.Z. as 742-1, to Howard Wood, Reg Cook, John Grobbe 1982.

[Chris Townsend]

I bet Topin was the man who made Rajah's 712M into a 73B - and it did go to the Far East and [as Bryan has revealed] also made its way into the Antipodes.

[Bryan Miller]

In A/S. Sept. 5 1975 p.59 for sale column have you been able to put a no. or identity to Alan Rollinsons car.?
Is it a genuine 74B or a lash up .??????

[Chris Townsend]

Bryan

As those Chevron's seem to have developed into a general Atlantic/F2 thread I'm answering you on those 75Bs over here. The two cars to the USA, what numbers and to whom? I think that 75B-10 was Bertil Roos' car, and I think that all the real 75Bs went to N.America.

I've started a new thread for N.Zealand, begining at the begining with Bay Park, 77. Ultimately I want to do for Atlantics what's being done for F5000 on oldracingcars. To begin with that means being patchy because we're talking about a decade and a half of racing in six differnt countries at various times. But it does seem that we are quite close with NZ, and also with the 1974 British JP series.

Chris

[Bryan Miller]

Chris,
March 75B-8
Yellow Tub. no. 16 gearbox no. FT.200-1013
Grimaldi/Shierson
collected by Rapid Movements 17th. April 1975


However there is a hell of a lot more. This is the Dave Saunders car in N.Z. I will explain .
The current owner Howard Blight purchased car in Oz and on my insistence in official capacity he ran Dave Saunders.
History as told by Saunders,
Purchased by Saunders from March in 1976,date unspecified,to run in N.Z. Series.
I have in front of me a copy of N.Z. registration of motor vehicle [ even race cars in nz had this then], dated 10-11-77 at Henderson reg. plate no. I.G.4593.
Make March 1975.
Eng. No. DA276D.
Chassis No. 75B-8.
etc.etc.
Over page is transfer to Willowbank Motor Court[1975] ltd. L.M.V.D. at 554 Great King Street ,Dunedin.
Above ent. dated 5th. May 1981.
This I believe is Ross Cameron. N.Z. GUYS CAN YOU CONFIRM.????///
1984-1989 Ken Smith to Allan Champion to Ken Smith again .
Why not , he owned my Modus twice as well .
To Gerry Duyvestyn of Australia in Sept. 1989.
To Howaed Blight 29/8/1993.
I picked car up from Duyvestan,s home with Howard.
MORE MORE .
I soggested to Howard he get in touch with Shierson which he did .
Shierson advised his records had gone astray, however did advise that he always had his own cars from March with ch.no. 8 or 9 for his own use as opposed to customers cars.
This leads us to think it may be Villenuves 75 Atlantic car in Canada , but Howard will not claim till he knows definately.

2nd. car
March 77B-5
Nicholson Ford NME 080
Orange French Blue
Monocoque no. 773-16
gearbox no. Ft.200-1129
Doug Shierson
Dispatched 6th. December 1976.

[Bryan Miller]

I left something very important out , Saunders advised that at the 2nd. round at Pukekohe the car was very badly damaged and a new tub was purchased from John Thompson in the U.K.
new tub no.M772PU6.
Car then painted white.
Bryan. David and Armco does this still give us 2 entities for Saunders or the same car diff. colour etc.

[Armco Bender]

Yep I saw the Saunders car just after he crashed it,practising for the GP,he ran off the sweeper coming up to the start of the front straight,he hit a big fence post front on and the tub was split open like a peeled banana.That tub would have never been used again.I'm sure Saunders broke his leg/s badly.If my memory serves me right the car was white and it had sponsorship from someone like DTR television rentals,and it was No9.
The registration of the cars was mainly for tax purposes I think,not to do with them being driven on the road.They had an "E" Exempt Vehicle label on them,for off road use.

[Bryan Miller]

Armco , any ideas on whether he had an earlier car as per David McKinney's list or do you think it was the same car rebuilt as per my suggestion.????????
Bryan.

[Chris Townsend]

Bryan

Saunder's car: Described as a 75B at Bay Park 77. Car described as destroyed by Motoring News report of Pukekhoe 77. So that all tallies.
But at Bay Park I think that MN hinted that the car was a bitza, but they could have been wrong, and I'll double check. So let's call the Saunders car at Bay Park and Pukekhoe 75B-8 [oops wrong thread here] and hope that more comes up on the Shierson connection.

Allen, according to your USA journals who did Shierson run in 75 and any hints on car colour?
The only 75B that begins the season with a Nicholson motor is the car of Don Briedenbach. A picture would be good! [Is his car 75B-5?]

Chris

[Bryan Miller]

Chris, I think you will find Gilles Villenueve and at least on 1 occasion Price Cobb were Shierson drivers.
Bryan

[Bryan Miller]

Chris , the second car is 77B, not a 75B.
Bryan

[Chris Townsend]

Bryan

Thanks for the correction.77 Shierson ran Howdy Holmes and Bill Brack in N.America, and had two spare cars. However, he also runs a car in the S.African series for Rupert Keegan. This car is then used in ZA by John Gibb.
Given that three 77Bs appear in this series [Ian Scheckter; Roy Klomfass and Keegan] it might be that an early build date such as this was the Keegan car. I'll try and find a pic of the Keegan car. Is this car in Australia now? Do you know about any s.African connection

Chris

[Bryan Miller]

Chris, no only lucked on that 77B info , because before Kevin and I picked car up from Peter Finlay in Sydney , I asked Peter what the ch.no. was over the ph. Peter told me 77B-5 so I faxed D.R. and rec'd that reply.
When we arrived to pick car up a few days later , the first thing I went to look at was the pl. no. and saw 772-5 and asked Peter , who not realising the diff. said , it's always been known as a B in N.Z.

You should have seen Kevin's face drop.
I said pay the money , grab it and run , we will sort it out later.
Guess what, 4 years later we are still trying.???????

[Armco Bender]

any ideas on whether he had an earlier car as per David McKinney's list or do you think it was the same car rebuilt as per my suggestion.????????

:confused: This is getting confusing,The car Saunders raced at Baypark would have certainally been the one he drove at Pukekohe the following weekend.I'd have to beleive Dave McKinney that it was a 74B because Dave would have gone around and seen the numbers I pressume.The car at Pukekohe(I unfortunately didnt get to BayPark that year) was definitely a 74 or 75 chassis,it certianally wasn't a 'new' model March(the 'newest' Marches in '77 were the 2 '76Bs) it was an updated older one.One would assume the car he raced in the '78 series was this car rebuilt with a new tub.It must have taken some time to rebuild,and I'm sure Saunders broke his leg/s in the crash so it wasn't raced again probably until the '78 series again.At the '78 Pukekohe race he only went about 50m before flipping the car upside down.It wasn't badly damaged in that crash,but I'm sure it was about then Saunders flagged away a racing career!.I'm pretty sure in '78 the car was white and unsponsored.Sorry to use pretty sure and think a lot,as all this was around 25 years ago it gets a little fuzzy thinking back that far.
I know my Father has super 8 movie film of the '77 and '78 series,and I'm pretty sure there is a view of the Saunders car after its '77 crash on a trailer in the paddock and it also has the tail end of the '78 roll over on it,I will try to get my hands on it and see if we can get some frames off it.

[allenbrown]

Hi

Don't know whether this helps but March 73B-17 was the March RX10B Can-Am car of Seann Burgess in 1965 and 1986. He bought it from a Joe Ostrowski of New Jersey in 1982. Joe had purchased it from the DRC Team who ran it in 1973/1974 for Bruce Macinnes and Ron Cohn. Seann has restored it as the #66 McInnes car but I'm not sure if that part of the identification is certain.

Allen

[Bryan Miller]

Chris ,
last night [sat.] I was trolling through my meagre 9 copies of A.S ,[other years Ihave virtually all] .
Just trying to assist on 73b ,you probably are aware of piece in A.S. ju.28 p31 which says Ken Bailey has the ex. Cyd Williams car from 1972 . Did this car become a 73B lookalike and was it new for Bailey or a rebirth on a 712 ?
Bryan.

[Bryan Miller]

Chris , I hope this helps , the car I mentioned above shoud be the car for sale Jan 10 74 with ugly Falconer bodywork , and still for sale May2 74, by Ken Bailey.
Meanwhile PAGE 56 A/S.April 25 74 , by Ken Baily is a 73B with std. bodywork and 8 races from new , built late 73.
Have we got 2 x Ken Baily / Bailey. ?????????????
Bryan.