The Porsche 911 is famous for countless things, but there are many who are unaware of the model’s early rallying dominance in some of Europe’s most challenging competitions. After its initial release in 1963 a number of both factory and privateer entries made appearances at the highest levels of international rally competition, and in 1968…
The racing exploits of the Abarth versions of the little Fiat 600 became legendary throughout the 1960s, the Austrian born Carlo Abarth seemed capable of extracting almost impossible levels of performance from the tiny Italian engine. Carlo Abarth had been born Karl Albert Abarth in Vienna in 1908, he moved to Italy as a young man…
The Lancia Delta HF Integrale Evoluzione 1 was to be the final homologation car for the Lancia Rally Team, and the crowning glory on what is now remembered as the most successful Group A car in World Rally Championship history. In total, it took 46 WRC victories, it won the Constructors Championship 6 times in…
KTM have won the motorcycle class of the Paris-Dakar every year since 2001, one of the most significant winning streaks in the history of the event. The first Paris-Dakar was run in 1978, it was organised by Thierry Sabine who realised that the desert would be a fantastic place for an endurance race – when…
By 1956 the Monte Carlo Rally was already 45 years old, and very well established as one of the world’s pre-eminent road racing events. Automobile manufacturers used it as a way to publicly show off the toughness and reliability of their vehicles, and played down the amount of mechanical work the driver and co-driver typically…
The Ford RS200 rose from the ashes of the ill-fated Escort RS 1700T project – after a successful rally programme based around the earlier Escorts, Ford knew it needed a revolutionary new car to compete with the likes of Audi, Peugeot and Renault. By the early 1980s it had become clearly evident that the only…
The Alpine Rally was characterised by its stunning views, tight mountain roads and cliffside driving that would make even the bravest of modern racing drivers reconsider their profession. The route of the rally made its way through some of the most famous mountain passes in Austria, Germany, Italy and Switzerland – covering hundreds of miles…
Group B: The Ultimate Rally is one of the better documentaries about the golden era of rally, one of the reasons it’s so good is because it was filmed at the time – rather than being compiled from clips decades later. The list of legendary rally drivers and rally cars seen in this film is…
The Lancia Stratos, or more correctly, the Lancia Stratos HF (HF standing for High Fidelity) is a car developed by Italian design house Bertone for their fellow Italians over at Lancia. It was to be the first car developed from scratch for the World Rally Championship – specifically for the hotly contested Group 4 class, which…
Sinn Spezialuhren is a watchmaker that most people have never heard of, it’s a German company that was founded by pilot Helmut Sinn in 1961 to make chronographs and instruments for pilots and aircraft. Although the Swiss might be more famous for their chronographs, the Germans have a long history of producing world class watches…
The Road To Monte Carlo is a 1960 documentary film about the legendary Rallye Monte Carlo – a race only marginally less famous than its Formula 1 equivalent. In 1960 the race encompassed a huge assortment of motor cars from Europe and further afield, half a dozen Minis made their first major race outing at…
The 1984 Paris-Dakar was a seminal year for the annual race, Porsche made their first appearance with the 953/991 – a car that would be developed into the now legendary Porsche 959. In 1984 the Stuttgart factory entered three cars with Rothmans livery, the team was headed by Formula 1 icon Jacky Ickx who can…
