[2][3] In 1975, the Slovenian naturalized Canadian businessman Walter Wolf had started to appear at many of the F1 races during the season.

Simultaneously Wolf bought the assets of Hesketh Racing who had withdrawn from F1 due to financial issues and bought some equipment from Embassy Hill after they shut down their F1 team following a plane crash that killed six people including team owner Graham Hill and his driver Tony Brise.

The team was based in the Williams facility at Reading but used most of the cars and equipment once owned by Hesketh Racing.

He removed Frank Williams from the manager's job and replaced him with Peter Warr from Team Lotus.

Postlethwaite's WR1 was a conventional Cosworth package but with Jody Scheckter hired from Tyrrell, the team won its first race in Argentina.

Scheckter finished fourth in Spain and second in Germany but the WR5 soon made way for the WR6 with which he ended the year with a third in the US Grand Prix and second in Canada.

Walter Wolf was also involved in production cars, providing assistance to Lamborghini to develop the Countach in 1978 when the Italian constructor teetered on the brink of bankruptcy.