The 1964 Alan Mann Mustang DPK4B
driven most probably by
Alan Mann and Frank Gardner, later Pius Zuend and Herbert Mueller
created 2002, last upated December 2021

 





DPK4B August, 22nd, 1965 at the St. Ursanne hillclimb race in Switzerland
Pictures are available from Stanford for 20$ or 40$ for non-commercial use.

More DPK4B pictures are available from Erik Jelinek from the Technical Museum Vienna.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 




The History of the DPK4B licenced Mustang

This Mustang was for a long period believed to be the 4th Tour de France car and the  personal commuter of Alan Mann himself and Frank Gardner. Both told us in interviews that they used a spare Mustang during the TDF.

However since we found 5F08K208112 to be licenced as DPL8B and still in existence, DPK4B must have been another Mustang that just got licenced together with the famous DPK5B, DPK6B and DPK7B before the Tour de France 1964.

We can only speculate as of now, which car DPK4B really was, since there are at least 3 possibilities
1. the prototype sent in February 1964 (carrying a dealer licence plate 759H for road use)
2.VIN #100033 shipped with the 2 early Liege-Sofie-Liege rallye cars
3. VIN #100055 shipped with the 2 early Liege-Sofie-Liege rallye cars

We tend to believe DPK4B was the early prototype delivered to Alan Mann in February 1964 for suspension testing.

Anyway DPK4B was not #208112. It seems logical that one of the earlier Mustangs being around at Alan Mann at the time was added to the 3 TDF cars #208109 (DPK5B), #208110 (DPK6B), and #208111 (DPK7B), but both Liege rally cars were heavily damaged, so there was little choice.

So far we have not been able to find any photo showing a 4th car at the Tour de France following the races or being driven to pits and service areas. If you can help, let us know.

It is currently believed that Alan Mann left DPK4B upon a cars failure in Switzerland, when he was at the Monte Carlo rallye 1965. Still no photo evidence for that, but in Tony Drons book about Alan Mann Racing this incident is mentioned.

After Alan Manns ownership DPK4B had a number of race appearances with the Ecurie Filipinetti/Switzerland in 1965 and 1966, amongst them the Gaisberg hillclimb race and a race in Turckheim.

It is shown here at Turckheim, June 26th, 1965

We have a narration from John Grant, ex-mechanic of the AMR Team, that an extra car would just serve as a spare part container, if anything would fail. John reported that indeed some parts were taken off from DPK4B for the other racing cars and later probably parted out.

So we asked John again, what happened exactly to DPK4B after the Tour de France 1964?
"
The DPK4B was later reassembled with ordered parts and put on sale from our lot." says John Grant.

We checked the road approval files through a friend in the UK and found out that DPK4B indeed was registered with the group of the other 3.
The Passino inventory papers initially assigned the 4 cars 208109,110,111 and 112 to the Tour de France, later inventory papers in late 1964 only list however 3 cars, the 4th number 112 disappeared. As we know from John, the US inventory persons called Alan for verification of the numbers and Alan only answered on the phone, which one was there and which not. They trusted his words not asking for further evidence.

The DPK4B car pictured in Switzerland has some features that do not match the other TDF cars. Which can be explained by either the rebuild or the early prototype status or the cars delivered much earlier #33 and #55. Yet without interior pics of the later DPK4B car we have not yet the photographic evidence for further statements.

Henri and Tom Mann published some years ago an interior picture of the prototype, which show the Falcon items.
Below find some pictures out of George Merwins and Alan Manns archive. The car was driven by Paddy McNally obviously at one event. He later got his own Mustang for the 65 season, but this car pictured here was labelled 1964 in Merwins files. It may be either #33 or #55.

Paddy McNally driving an early Mustang at Goodwood in 1964.

I unearthed this picture in George Merwins archive, it seems to be from the Goodwood event, since the above picture was in the same series.

As mentioned above DPK4B appeared under the Filpinetti banner  in Switzerland, Germany and Austria from August 1965.
It was mainly raced by Pius Zuend.



On Sept. 19th, 1965 the car turned up at the Gaisberg hillclimb race with door number #50. Driver Pius Zünd.

Another race entry is with door number #91 the "Großer Preis von Wien-Aspern". Pics are visible on the site of the Technical Museum Vienna. More pics are also available from the Stanford Universitys online library.

We are looking for more information after this race. We know of pics with Herbert Mueller in 1966 with a Mustang that looks very similar.

Pius Zuend Jr. unfortunately died in 1982 already.

Thanks to all contributors for their help in tracing the history of DPK4B down.




Read on - Exclusive on Ponysite:


The History of the '64 TDF winner Mustang DPK7B
The History of the '64 TDF second winner Mustang DPK6B

The History of the '64 TDF DNF Mustang DPK5B
The History of the 1964 Liege car DPG3B
The History of the 1964 Liege car DPJ8B
The History of the 1964 Jacky Ickx car ABP325B
The History of the 1964 Alan Mann car DPL8B


The George Merwin files - exclusive on Ponysite!

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