Peter,
The Citroen we drove in the 77 London to Sydney was a 2 month old CX 2400 Station Wagon, interestingly when it was unloaded at Perth; Australian Customs valued it at $500 for import duty.
Now if you ever thought of participating in a long distance Rally, 30,000 K and you wanted to do it the wrong way we had the perfect formulae, I’m sure some of the other entrants thought we where a cross between the Three Stooges and the Keystone Cops. Our secret formulae was,
Take three guys from very diverse backgrounds and zip real rally experience, bring them together for the first time in London two weeks before the rally starts, have the vehicle preparation done by a bunch of mechanics that had never been outside England, leave testing till the day the vehicles where impounded prior to the start, and have just the rally notes and a single A4 sized map to the world with which to find Australia. Worst of all the vehicle owner thought we would be competitive and could win, Mercedes Benz had other ideas. [first, second, - fourth, fifth and a DNF] Irishman Paddy Hopkirk in a works Citroen third.
Did we have any trouble? Well we made it out of England through Holland and Germany OK till the first of numerous fuel blockages as well as high oil temperature warning light above 100 KPH in France and from then on. After market sump guard restricted air around finned sump. Changed radiator in Athens and no real dramas till we got half way across Iran.
Spent six hours beside a highway changing the head gaskets, by the time we did this the firth time we got it down to about an hour. From here on we did not catch up with the rally till about four hours before the cars where loaded onto the boat at Madras Southern India and even that was at the end of a tow rope for the last 50 k behind an Australian Datsun 1600.
Had a wheel depart the car and sideswiped a bus in India, spent hours drilling out two broken wheel studs with an eggbeater hand drill, luckily didn’t hit any of the local livestock that was considered much worse form than running over people.
Made it to the start line in Malaysia only to have a fire inside the dash panel, things got much worse that night when on a transit section on a good highway we slipped off the road dropped a metre or so into a rubber plantation, took out numerous fence posts and bounced off several rubber trees. Plenty of minor damage like broken lights, cracked windscreen, lost all oil from hydraulic system more serious factors where,
1 – Reduction of wheel base on the RHS by 3 inches
2 – Reduction of wheel base on the LHS by 1 inche
3 – Unable to open doors on RHS ever again
4 – Radiator repositioned on top of engine with a section missing out of the centre you could fit your fist through.
5 – Three inche long splits half way along roof on both sides
So, after much commiserating with other competitors, “Bad luck old chap” sort of thing we were again up the proverbial. 16 hours later, lots of wire and solder we where back on the highway, distinctly crab wise and like true bad penies managed to turn up in Singapore again just before the boat was loaded.
Crossing Australia from Perth via Alice Springs etc was a breeze apart from the odd minor incident, three head gasket changes and a hole burnt in an exhaust valve you could fit your little finger in, roused the local small bush town mechanic who had some Stelite welding rods and patched up the valve, no more dramas till we got to within 100 meters of the Sydney Opera House, blown tyre. We had been hoping to win the $500 prise for last place but another competitor got behind us.
Was it a rough trip, you bet it was, would I be in it again, in the blink of an eye.
A few words of advice to the 98% of you that would like to take part in such an adventure,
1 - A complementary team is essential, at least one member with good mechanical knowledge of the vehicle and the ability to fix the unexpected breakdowns. Someone with good negotiating and peace making skills within the team and even across unknown languages outside the team.
2 - Preparation and light weight. It goes without saying the vehicle must be made to stand the distance, a large part of achieving this will be in reducing the all up weight of the vehicle and load carried as far as possible within the rules of the rally. Throw every thing over board you or the car can do without, air conditioner, heater, radio, most spare parts and tools, weight is a killer.
3 - Forget about finishing on the podium it’s not going to happen, concentrate everything on getting there as a lot of the “hot shots” will fall by the way side.
4 – Take enough dried and caned food and water with you to see you thought out , Delhi Belly is no fun.
5 – If you think you can beat the likes of Mercedes Benz don’t even bother entering, in 1977 there where five new “privately entered” E280’s all different colours all prepared by the best rally car builder in Germany and driven by a lot of the best European rally drivers. Their lead car driver got a bit carried away crossing Iran, decided he wanted to get to the next stop early, got air born over a hump and when he came back to earth hit with enough force to separate the tail shaft. By the time the mechanics caught up and fix the problem the car had lost too much time to be competitive so it was withdrawn, flown ahead and was waiting in Malaysia to become the mechanics transport from then on.
Hope I'm not taking up too much space. Cheers Geoff Eldridge
