The Rise and Fall of the Formula Two Kit Cars

 

A visit to Cadwell Park for the NHMC Circuit Rally there recently gave me my first look at Chris West's awesome Peugeot 306 Maxi. Finishing second, ahead of a brace of four wheel drive R5 cars, as well as some seriously quick RWD machines, it was an excellent performance in less-than-ideal conditions for a two wheel drive car. But then these Kit Cars were amazing machines that earnt their place in rallying legend.

Kit Cars were a magnificent failure for the motorsport rule writers. You have to feel sorry for these people. Back in the day it seemed fairly obvious that rallying would be split between the more sadate mass produced saloon cars and the much faster limited edition sports cars, and the original Appendix J regulations were written accordingly. However, it took about ten minutes for the Works teams to figure out that if you just took the back seats out of their three-box-shaped saloon cars you could homologate a tasty rallying version whilst only building a few hundred. Ten years later the regulations attempted to create a class of moderately warmed over production cars to run behind the awesomely quick Group B cars which they called Group A. With Group B banned Group A became the main event. The Italians then got their best lawyers on the case and rocked up at the start of the 1987 Monte Carlo Rallye with a Lancia HF Turbo that was a lot more than just slightly warmed over. The rest is history. 

By the early 1990s these Group A cars had evolved into serious machinery such as the Toyota Celica GT Turbo, the Ford Escort Cosworth and the Subaru Impreza that were even faster than the old Group B cars they were meant to have supported. On the World Rally circuit these cars provided incredibly close rallying. However, the price had increased even more than the performance, and on National events there were only ever a handful of such top range machines. 

The sad fate of the British Rally Championship illustrates the problem. In the 1980s, as the British Open, it was the world's second rally series, a proving ground for future world champions where twenty or more top range cars battled it out in the forests and on the tarmac. By the 1990s though the fields were reduced to about five top Group A cars, and most of those would primarily be tackling the Irish Tarmac Championship. 

Something had to be done, and that something was Formula Two. In the Seventies rally fans had swarmed by in their hundreds of thousands to watch two litre, two wheel drive, normally aspirated cars battle it out, and there was no reason to think they wouldn't do so again. The FIA launched the Two Litre World Championship in 1993. The next year it was won by Skoda using the little Favourit. This almost killed the championship as manufactures didn't mind spending millions to be beaten by the likes of Toyota or Subaru, but spending that money and being whipped by a 1.3 litre ex-communist car was not so good. 

For 1994 the rules were changed to allow Kit Cars. These were still two litres and two wheel drive, but they allowed a lot more modification. This was no more than what most amateur drivers had been doing since rallying was invented, but Works teams weren't usually given such a free hand, for reasons that will become obvious. 

The effect in the UK was immediate. Whilst the 1994 British Rally Championship had basically been decided as soon as Malcolm Wilson turned up with his Works Escort Cosworth, in 1995 five drivers went into the last round with a chance of winning it, with Alistair McRae just beating Gwyndaf Evans in a series that had five different winners in as many rounds. Then it all started to very wrong, or very right, depending on your point of view. 

We can blame the French for this. Apart from being rallying mad, they have a national championship that is mostly tarmac. A heavy turbo Group A car was not necessarily the best for this. On the other hand a nice lightweight, high revving two wheel drive car would be perfect. So, the result was the Kit Cars started to get a bit exciting. 

The French series now saw the likes of  Jean Ragnotti in the Renaut Clio Maxi taking on Gilles Panizzi in the Peugeot 306 Maxi. These would soon be joined by cars from SEAT, Citroen, Suzuki, Ford, Hyundai, Nissan and Skoda. Formula Two had certainly brought back the works teams. 

The Peugeot even had a cameo in the opening sequence of the film Taxi 2, where it is caught on stage by the titular Peugeot 406 taxi. Maybe a 405 T16 could have done this, but no 406 on Earth could have. 

Kit Cars were eligible to enter World Rallies, and that's where they really showed what they could do. On the 1997 Tour de Corse only rain on the last day, which gave the four wheel drive cars an edge, stopped Gilles Panizzi beating Colin McRae. The World Rally Cars were hassled by Kit Cars on other tarmac rallies too, until in 1999 Philippe Bugalski beat them all and won both the Rally Catalunya and Tour de Corse.

This was all very exciting, but it couldn't last. It wasn't just that the WRC teams didn't like being beaten by National level competition, but the costs had now got competely out of control. Not only were these cars beyond the means of most privateers, but only three manufactures were still willing to stay in this arms race. 

So, Formula Two was no more, gone the way of Group B. Thankfully, some of these magnificent cars still complete. 

The Ford Fiesta in rallying and rallycross

Yesterday the last Ford Fiesta rolled off the production line in Cologne, so it's perhaps a good time to reflect on the car's use in rallying and rallycross. This is very much a story of two halves, with a huge gap in between, and it's fairly easily told.

The Fiesta launched in 1976 as part of a new generation of front wheel drive 'superminis'. But whilst it's rival and contemporary the VW Golf was already a hot hatch (although not yet imported into the UK), Ford only produced the boring versions of the car for several years.

Things started to change on the 1979 Monte Carlo rally. Two specially prepared Fiesta ran in Group 2, driven by future world champion Ari Vatanen and a rather frustrated Roger Clark. They were the support act to Ford's attempt to win the event with a pair of seriously hot Group 4 Escorts for Hannu Mikkola and Bjorn Waldegard. An overall win was prevented by the French police and French spectators respectively, but the Fiestas did well enough, easily beating a pair of Fiat Ritmos, the car that was sold in the UK as a Strada, driven by Per Eklund and Antonio Bettega. Vatanen came a respectable ninth, but it was Jean Ragnotti's pocket rocket Renault 5 Alpine won Group 2.

It was a decent result in the circumstances, but Ford it seemed had greater expectation. Having thrown a lot of money at the Fiesta project they then let it die, and that was basically that for the cat at the top level of rallying. Some of the special bits and bobs from the rally car, including the tuned Kent engine, made their way into the XR2, which was the starter hot hatch for a whole generation of boy racers.

It was a different story in rallycross though. The division of the British series into under and over 1.6 litre categories meant the car was perfectly placed to eclipse the Mini as the top vehicle in the smaller class. In 1981 a very special space-framed works Metro gave them a hard time, but despite that the Fiesta cleaned up. What was under the bonnet was usually a BDA and not a breathed on Kent, and in the hands of Trevor Hopkins and Keith Ripp they not only took class but championship honours in 1981, 1982 and 1983.

By then four wheel drive and turbo charging had arrived in rallycross and the days of rear wheel drive Escorts mixing it with front wheel drive Minis and Fiestas were over. In rallying Ford abandoned the RS1700T project for the RS200, which in turn had to be abandoned when Group B died and they had to try to make the two wheel drive Sierra Cosworth a winner. This was followed by the Escort Cosworth and Focus RS, which were both amazing cars, although neither was ultimately as successful as they should have beeen. All those vehicles, except the RS1700T, made it into rallycross, where they were outright winners, whilst the Fiesta remained the preserve of the odd privateer.

All this changed in 2011, when rallying rewrote the rules and 1.6 litre turbos became the norm. The Focus was retired and the Fiesta, now on its sixth iteration, became the main Ford rallying machine. The Fiesta ST had been completing in Group N, and its own one make series, and Malcolm Wilson's M Sport had produced a championship winning Super 2000 car, but now the Fiesta moved up to the next level with the Fiesta RS WRC.

Everything started well with a 1-2-3 on the opening round of the 2011 season in Sweden, but after that it was all downhill. There were also wins in Australia and Wales, but once again the championship went to Loeb and Citroen. In 2012 there were wins in Sweden, Portugal and Wales, but it was again the French championship winning combination was unbeatable, this time by a country mile, and Ford pulled the plug. This was probably wise as VW were about to rain on everyone's picnic. In 2013 Fiestas were still popular cars, but there were no more wins.

In 2017 the rules were reworked again and wings came back. M Sport went to work again, this time turning the Mark 7 Fiesta in the Fiesta WRC. With Ford money behind them and reigning world champion Sebastien Ogier behind the wheel the Fiesta finally had a shot at the top spot. Again it started well, with wins in Monte Carlo for Ogier and Sweden for Jan Mari Latvala. Then Thierry Neuville and Hyundai fought back and the championship caught alight. It was all decided on Wales Rally GB. Elfyn Evans took a very popular home win in the Fiesta, ahead of Neuville in his Hyundai, who'd recovered from visiting a ditch on the first day. Third was Ogier in his Fiesta, which gave the blue oval it's first world championship since Ari Vatanen in 1981.

2018 was more of the same. Ogier and Neuville swapped wins until the final round in Australia, where the Hyundai hit a tree and gave Ogier his sixth world championship. For 2019 though Ogier went back to Citroen, Wilson stepped down as M Sport boss and Ford were winless and came fourth in the manufacturers championship. Ford were again winless in the Covid affected 2020 and 2021 championships, but in 2023 they signed Sebastien Loed and 43 years after Vatanen had pedalled his Mark 1 Fiesta to ninth, Loeb won the Monte Carlo in his. That was the car's only win of the year though and at the end of the season the Fiesta was retired and replaced by the Puma.

Whilst all this had been going on rallycross had hit the big time with the launch of the FIA World Rallycross Championship in 2014. Amongst the wide variety of cars that started that debut season were Fiesta STs for Andreas Bakkerud, Reinis Nitiss and Bohdan Ludwiczak. WRX provided great entertainment straight out of the box and wins were shared amongst four different teams. Bakkerud won at Lydden Hill and in Turkey, whilst Nitiss won in Norway and scored consistently enough to come third in the championship.

For 2015 there were seven drivers in Fiestas. Only Bakkerud managed a win, but consistent performances by him and Nitiss secured their team second place overall. For 2016 and 2017 Bakkerud joined Ken Block's Hoonigan team, which moved back to driving Focuses. There were still Fiestas entered, but they rarely troubled the top order after that.

The Fiesta still soldiered on at a national level though. In the UK, for example, Fiestas driven by Pat Doran and Julian Godfrey won every year from 2009 to 2015. In 2019 it was Godfrey again and in 2021 Derek Tohill in his Fiesta. Then in 2022 Patrick O'Donovan slipped and slided from last place to win the final of the 2022 Five Nationals Championship at Lydden Hill in his Fiesta. 

POD swapped to a Peugeot for his attempt at the 2023 European Rallycross Championship, although as I write the championship leader is Anton Markland in a Fiesta. However, with production now at an end, the Puma Ford's main car on the rally stages, this could well be the Fiesta's swan song. It's a pretty unusual record, and nobody younger than me remembers both halves of it, but the car has its place in rallying and rallycross history. 

Flashy Motors

Top Ten Eighties Crime Fighting Vehicles

After the whimsical sixties and the gritty seventies came the flashy eighties. Realism was out and flash was in. As ever the hero needed his car, not so much to prove his masculinity as to demonstrate his place in the social scale.

So it's Ray-Bans on and filofaxes at the ready as we count down the best crime fighting vehicles of the decade. 

10. The A Team GMC Van
Cool 2 Style 1 Performance 1 

Okay, so maybe it wasn't the the most stylish wheels to grace the TV, but then Mr T would look rather out of place stepping out of MG Midget. The A Team was a show for boys in which the titular laddish gang took on a different bunch of bad guys every week and, despite firing thousand of rounds of ammunition in their general direction, never actually manage to kill or injure anyone.

The van itself inspired thousands of second rate copies from thousands of second rate people, including the chap near me in Leicester who painted his old Bedford van up in imitation using Dulux emulsion paint. Classy. Not.

However credit to the A-Team, this is a surprisingly proletarian means of transport for the era of Thatcher and Reagan. Not that you can really make a case for the guys being a bunch of class warriors fighting Gordon Geckos of the time, but it's still different.

9. Knight Rider Pontiac Trans-Am.
Cool 1 Style 1 Performance 3

The car's styling is the worst of the eighties, and not really enhanced by the sort strobing red light on the front kids fit to their first Ford Fiesta to try to make it look 'cool'. The original Firebird had been an early muscle car, made famous by Burt Reynolds in Smokey and the Bandit, but for this version though the designers concentrated on handling and fuel economy, which is boring.

As the Knight Rider it was supposedly nuclear powered though, which makes it a low emissions vehicle, although on the downside if it was ever involved in an accident they'd have to evacuate California. The Firebird would get its mojo back in future evolutions whilst The Hoff would find fame hanging around with women in bikinis in Baywatch, but for a generation of small boys he'll always be Michael Knight.

8. The Bill Rover SD1 
Cool 1 Style 2 Performance 3

Over the 26 years it was on air the vehicles used by Sun Hill's finest varied from Austin Metros to BMW 5 series, but the one that sticks in the mind - because it was used in the original opening credits - is the Rover SD1 'jam butty car'.

Sun Hill only got the 2.6 litre version, but real cops got the V8, which combined US style grunt with UK style build quality, which could be an 'exciting' combination. Tony Pond rallied a Group A version with some success, although he is mainly remembered for crashing out on the first stage of the 1984 RAC Rally whilst sporting a - then very rare - in-car camera. That was basically the sort of luck this car had and so what could have been an early Sierra Cosworth is not remembered anything like as well as it should be.

7. Morse Jaguar Mark II
Cool 1 Style 3 Performance 2

You suspect Endeavour (yes, that was his first name) chose this for comfort rather than speed, probably because high speed car chases are a bit difficult after several pints of Real Ale. However in their day these cars were British Touring Car champions, unbeaten on the racing circuit - except by the occasional lucky Mini - until the Yanks brought over their Ford Galaxies.

Today however the cars project a sense of old world style and respectability, unlike in the sixties when they suggested gangsters or bank robbers. I have no idea where in Oxford Morse ever managed to park the thing, or whether the cooling system was ever up to gridlock at Botley Interchange, but the car is now very much associated with the city. In reality Oxford was where they made the Morris Minor, Maxi, Marina and Triumph Acclaim, so it could have been worse.

The Jaguar also pretty much defined the term 'practical classic' and whilst poor old Jim Bergerac had to struggle with an unreliable Triumph Roadster, with an overdubbed engine,  Endeavour had a vehicle that would usually at least get him to the scene of the crime.

6. Moonlighting BMW 635CSi
Cool 2 Style 4 Performance 4

A TV series that was all flash but still a lot of fun. Bruce Willis - yes that Bruce Willis - and the one and only Cybil Shepherd were in a show characterised by one liners and sexual tension. I can't remember a single bad guy they brought to justice, but the jokes were good.


The car was good too. I guess you can't do a eighties car list without including a Beamer, but this one had a genuine competition pedigree and a decent turn of speed. Unfortunately half way through the show's run BMW released the original M3 and after that nobody bothered with the sporty six series version any more. A pity because, although it was too big for rallying, on the circuits it was great and notched up a trio of European Touring Car titles. 

Alas it was still a BMW, and so no matter how witty you may be, if you drive one the jokes will always be about you.

5. The Equalizer Jaguar XJ6
Cool 2 Style 5 Performance 3

For me Edward Woodward will always be Callan, the world weary spy working for a ruthless spy agency. But in the 1980s he was Robert McCall, a world weary former spy now dabbling as a free lance private investigator and vigilante.


His XJ6 was certainly stylish, and reasonably quick, but I've always thought of Jaguars as reverse TARDISes - bigger on the outside than the inside. However it suited the premise of the character that he had a big car and a small gun (nudge nudge, oo-err madam) and McCall always used his superior skill and British pluck to take down New York's baddies. 

4. Hart to Hart Mercedes 450SL
Cool 2 Style 5 Performance 4

As further evidence that ordinary people were purged from the TV screens in the 1980s, I present Hart to Hart, a story of everyday millionaires who solve murders. Jonathan Hart's Ferrari 246 Dino would be a worthy number one in this list if it hadn't only appeared in the opening credits. Instead the usual vehicle of the Harts was a Mercedes 450 (later a 380) SL.

Despite Janis Joplin wanting one, Mercedes are hardly cool, although this one has some style. The car also has a rallying pedigree, winning a succession of African endurance events. They then signed World Champion Rally Driver Walter Rohrl and asked how good he could make the car in European rallies. He told them they could get sixth on the Monte - if they were lucky - and so they cancelled the program and sacked him. Honesty didn't really pay in the eighties. 

3. Miami Vice Ferrari 365 GTB/4
Cool 5 Style 5 Performance 3

This show was always more about style than substance: New Wave music, Armanni suits with t-shirts, loafers with no sock, designer stubble, and a Ferrari.

If this car had been real it would have been a winner. The last of the great front engined Ferraris, it looked, sounded and went like a dream. The premise was that the car had been seized from a drug baron by Vice Squad cops Crockett and Tubbs. As it was Ferrari wanted the real cops to seize the duos car as it was not a real Ferrari, but a replica based on Corvette and made without a license.

Ferrari eventually gave the producers a real Testerossa, on condition they destroyed the fake 365. The Testerossa was a decent machine, but it didn't have the style of the 365.


2. Ashes to Ashes Audi Quattro
Cool 5 Style 5 Performance 4 

Okay, this wasn't a real eighties TV series, but the Quattro was a real eighties car. Homologated in time for the 1981 rallying season, the Quattro bust onto the scene on the Monte and pulled away from the opposition at a rate of a minute a stage.

Turbo charged and four wheel drive at a time when the former was associated with Formula One and the latter with tractors, the Ur Quattro had both buckets of grunt and the traction to use it.  It was oversized and over-engineered by rally car standards, and you couldn't even do a handbrake turn, but on the road it was reliable and nimble enough to leave many pukka sports cars for dust even on dry gtarmac, and on gravel or snow it was untouchable.

The body was simply the existing Audi 80, but with bulbous wings and huge wheels it looked the part of the Teutonic monster it was.

1. Magnum PI Ferrari 308 GTS
Cool 5 style 5 Performance 5

Magnum was a Nam vet Private Detective living a dream life in Hawaii. Along with the house and the shirt, he also got the car.

The 308 was a cut price Ferrari for the austere seventies. Previous machines with the prancing horse logo had been the fastest things on the road, but the three litre 308 was in danger of being burnt off at the lights by a decent muscle car. On the other hand the car was practical, usable, looked divine and handled like a dream.

It was also a real rally car, the only Ferrari that ever was (unless you count the Tour de France or Targa Florio as rallies, which I don't). The special stage version was developed privately and had a decent turn of speed on tarmac, nearly winning the Tour de Corse a couple of times in the hands of Frenchman Jean Claude Andruet, but Italians being Italians they also rallied them on gravel. 

Magnum kept his on the black stuff, and living on a small island he had a lot of car for not very much road. But what a car. A worthy winner.

If you enjoyed this, check out my top ten crime fighting cars of the sixties and the seventies.

Five most unusual cars to enter the RAC rally

It's nearly that time of the year again.

No, not Rally Wales GB, which came and went a couple of weeks ago with very little excitement, but the far more interesting Roger Albert Clark Rally. The year the usual swarm of Escorts are joined by Steve Perez's incomparable Stratos, several continental Porsches and dark horse of the event the Fiat 131 Abarth of Julian Reynolds.

Over the years though the original RAC rally, which evolved into the Rally Wales GB and got itself stuck in the Principality in the process, saw some fairly unusual machinery take part. The word 'exotic' is well used to describe the cameos appearances by the little mid-engined Renault 5 Turbo, the Ford RS200, and the Lancia 037 Rally.

The word weird is probably best used to describe these machines though, the more unusual machines to venture forth into the British forests in November.

5. Panther Lima

At first glance the Lima, made by Blackpool based cottage industry Panther Westwinds, doesn't look a bad choice for a rally car. There's a tasty 2.3 lump taken from a Vauxhall Magnum, a compact two seater body and robust Vauxhall suspension. Admittedly sitting over the back wheels won't make it very comfortable in Kielder and the front wings don't allow for much suspension travel, but those are not the real problems.

You can basically rely on three things on the RAC Rally; it will be cold, wet and miserable. You want a car with performance, handling and reliability, but above all you want a roof. The Lima is ragtop. So hats off to intrepid crew Noel and Patrick Francis who completed the 1978 event in one.

4. Audi 80

It's difficult to believe now, but back in the 1970s Audis were cars for people who found Volvos too exciting. So when a Works team of Group 4 homologated Audi 80s appeared on the 1979 RAC we all wondered what was going on when. Oversized and underpowered, they understeered their way through the stages handicapped by a weight distribution slightly less balanced than a hammer. They were hopelessly off the pace.

Well, less than a year later we found out what was going on when they unveiled the Quattro. Then in 1981 they brought the beast to the UK whereupon the Stuttgart based team used the experience they'd gained with the 80, and the Quattros awesome grip and power, to win every UK forest event they entered. After that Audi had a slightly different image.

3. VW Beetle

Beetles were decent enough rally cars in the sixties, and Porsche engined variants were regular staples of the continental rallycross scene in the seventies and eighties. However it's fair to say that by 1992 it was not the most competitive car around.

But, if you can't make an impact with your car's speed or acceleration, you can always do it with the paint job. Dad Francis worked for Prodrive and was regular on the Historic rally scene in his Porsche. When he asked by young Richard what colour he would like his new rally car painted, he pointed to his Reebok trainers.

Richard finished the rally and didn't come last. He beat an MG Maestro, an Astra GTE, a Nova GSi and something else, which I will tell you about later, so well done young man.

2. Wartburg 353

Teams from the far side of the Iron Curtain used to be regulars on the RAC. The Skodas were genuinely good, and took home more than a score of class wins. The Ladas were fun, and once the official team stopped appearing the Lada Challenge provided tail out action when the rest of the field were front wheel drive.

However there's not much you can say in favour of the poor old Wartburg. Front wheel drive, far too large for its 1150ccs, and a two stroke, it was desperately sad to see the drivers pedaling the car hopelessly through the stages. The one virtue it had was that it was pretty robust - the engine apparently only had seven moving parts. They did actually move faster than you'd expect and one did once come second on a WRC event, although admittedly there were only three finishers, so it also finished second to last.

If nothing else though the Wartburg team dispelled the myth of invincible German technology. For that we must be grateful.

1. Trabant 601S

The end of communism meant the end of the factory teams from Eastern Europe, but the odd privateer did still make it over here. Two such intrepid adventurers were Michael Kahlfub and Gunter Friedemann who brought their Trabant to Britain in 1992.

It was a long time waiting in the rain for the little car with its cardboard bodywork and 595cc two stroke engine, but I wasn't the only fan making the effort. Asked how he found the stages Kahlfub said they were smoother than East German autobahns.

He finished the rally and wasn't last either, coming just behind Richard Tuthill's Beetle and ahead of three hot hatches. I wonder if those drivers ever lived that down?

Top Five Rock Cars

5. David Coverdale's Jaguar XJ

 

I must admit that when I first saw the video for Here I Go Again age seventeen I didn't actually notice that there was a car underneath Tawny Kitaen.

But, yes, as in all the other Whitesnake vids of the era, there is. And as David Coverdale, the lad from Yorkshire who joined the biggest rock band in the world before making it even bigger with his own band, never forgot where he came from it's a British motor.

Or two British motors actually, one white and one black. I used to think was some sort of symbolism. Not so. The video director just had a black one so he parked it next to Coverdale's white version and then asked Tawny to do her stuff. The result was a vid that helped push a song, that had previously only managed #34 in the UK charts on a previous release, to a Billboard #1.

The hair and the spandex have dated, but the cars haven't. Over here the big cats have a reputation of being a bit of an Arthur Daley motor and they aren't particularly practical on narrow roads. My little Metro ragged off a few. However even I'll admit the XJ is something of a classic design.

It not really recommended that your girlfriend dances in your lap whilst driving one though. I'd like to think Tawny was just playing around for the cameras, but as in 2002 she was arrested for kicking her then husband, Cleveland Indians player Chuck Finley, whilst he was driving, maybe she wasn't. He filed for divorce immediately afterwards and the Chicago White Sox played this song at the stadium next time they played the Indians.

4.  John Lennon's Rolls Royce Phantom V

 

How we missed the symbolism at the time.

When the hippest of the Fab Four bought a Roller and got artist Steve Weaver to paint it in the style of a Gypsy caravan it seemed that the counter-culture had stormed the bastions of the British Establishment.

It took punk to remind us that they had in fact become the Establishment.

Lennon, a wife beater who spent most of his post-Beatles career as a heroine addict, wrote some decent songs, but also appears to have lost touch with reality along the way.

Imagine is a great song, although a rather ironic one for funerals as who really wants to see the coffin of their loved one disappear behind the curtain to the words "Imagine there's no heaven." However in the video Lennon appears to have missed that he was singing "Imagine no possessions" whilst playing a $40,000 piano and wandering around his multimillion dollar mansion.

3. ZZ Top's Ford Eliminator

 

Few cars are more rock 'n' roll than the Ford Model A Coupe, the 'Little Deuce Coupe' of the Beach Boys song. Always a popular choice for making into a Hot Rod, the Eliminator is custom job done for ZZ Top frontman Billy F Gibbons by Don Thelan's Buffalo Motor Cars. The inspiration was the car driven by Martin Sheen in the film The California Kid.

They named their eighth album after the car and, along with the beards, the car had a starring role in the vids that accompanied their new grungy with a four-on-the-floor beat sound. The result though was a car that, although fully drag strip ready, spent more time posing than performing. 

2. Jan Berry's Corvette Stingray

When is comes to cars many artists talk the talk, but few walk the walk. Even fewer walk the walk and walk away.

Rock car crashes are tragically too numerous to mention them all. Marc Bolan died in a friend's Mini 1275GT, which, with only 57bhp probably gets the unfortunate prize of least powerful car to kill a celebrity. The prize for the most complete rock car death though must go to Whitesnake drummer Cozy Powell who died whilst doing 104mph in bad weather in his Saab 9000. Whilst drunk. And not wearing a seatbelt. And talking on his mobile phone. His last words were "Oh shit".

Jan Berry was half of a fifties double act that is surprisingly uncheesy. They liked their cars, and one of their songs was Dead Man's Curve,about a race between a Corvette and an E Type Jaguar that ends in both cars off the road.

Two years later Jan Berry was cruising on Sunset Boulevard, not far from Dead Man's Curve, when he too lost control of his 'vette and totalled it. He lived, and was back on the road a year later and lived to the ripe old age of 62.

1. Keith Moon's Chrysler Wimbledon 

Or was it a Lincoln Continental, or was it a Rolls Royce, or did it even happen at all?

This is the car that Keith Moon allegedly drove into a swimming pool in the ultimate act of rock we'll-pay-someone-else-to-clean-up-the-mess-'cos-we're-so-rich excess.

Numerous versions of the story abound. One has a drunk Moon trying to make a getaway from a police raid on a rowdy birthday party in a Lincoln, letting the handbrake off the car and having it roll backwards into the pool. In another version it's a Roller and in another the pool is a muddy pond at Moon's house.

Roger Daltry, who only admits to seeing the 450,000 bill for removing the car, says it was the Chrysler Wimbledon and an ornamental pool at a Holiday Inn in Flint, Michigan. As this is the nearest we've got to an eye witness, we'll go with that story.

In the picture the Wimbledon is the old timer to the right of the 246 Dino in this picture. As you can see Mr Moon has also pranged the Ferrari, allegedly after changing into first gear at 100mph.

But then, what is a rock car if it's in one piece. Some musicians, like Pink Floyd drummer Nick mason, whose collection includes a Ferrari F40 and a Lancia Stratos,look after their cars. Many musicians of that generation now look after themselves. Even Rik Wakeman has given up the booze and fags these days..

But what's rock 'n' roll about that?

Tragically Keith Moon did more damage to himself than to his machines and followed his Ferrari to the great party in the sky in 1978, after an overdose of prescription medication.

My Top Six Car Songs

6. Grey Cortina by Tom Robinson

A Cortina?

Well, of course. Tom Robinson here shows that, like charity, lust begins at home. I didn't grow up leering at Ferraris and Porsches in glossy magazines, but at the grubby Ford Capri's and Escort GTs up our street.

Not many Cortinas were actually grey, they were more a sort of one-shade-off-primer type of cream, and even fewer had twin exhausts. But whiplash aerials were essential, as otherwise they tended not to last too long as jealous little boys would bend them for you.

Jealous adults tended to do rather more than that. As Ford only ever had about three keys cut for their whole range stealing one was easy. In one year almost half the Cortinas in Belfast were stolen, which Ford claimed was because the thieves appreciated the performance and comfort.

Apparently Tom Robinson did eventually achieve his childhood dream and own a grey Cortina, only to have it written off after one day before he even got to a "2 4 6 8" Motorway.

5. MGB GT by Richard Thompson

It's hard to pick any particular theme from the songs of a writer and performer with a career as long and eclectic as Richard Thompson, but generally speaking whilst people are often suspect, machines are usually okay. He eulogised the Vincent Black Lightning motorbike in a song which, if this was a list about two wheeled machines, would be up there with Steppenwolf's Born To be Wild, Brigette Bardot's Harley Davidson, Arlo Guthrie's I Just Want To Ride My Motorcycle and Jasper Carrot's Funky Moped.

No, not really. The Bardot song is rubbish.

However we are staying on four wheels here, so instead of the 140mph Vincent, we have a song about a car that struggles to put a ton on the clock, but is slightly more practical.

The main interest here is Thompson's guitar playing, but with passing references to the Sunbeam Alpine, Triumph TR4 and an Austin Healey it's clear Thompson still longs for the classic British rag-tops of his youth. As a rally fan I'd have preferred a song about the Mini Cooper S, Lotus Cortina or Ford Escort Twin Cam, but I don't really mind MGBs, as long as they haven't got those hideous 1970s bumpers.

4. Red Barchetta by Rush

It's 1980 and the world in recovering from the second big oil shock. Meanwhile Canadian rockers Rush record this song.

Here we have their trade mark Ayr Rand inspired Libertarianism (although unlike Rand, Rush kept their drug consumption under control and never had to survive on Medicare) and sci-fi inspired lyrics, in this case the short story A Nice Morning Drive by Richard S. Foster.

In that the outlawed vehicle the hero uses to frustrate the officious and anti-car authorities is another MGB, but Rush decided instead to change to what many regard as the most beautiful Ferrari ever. A looker, sure, but it's hard to imagine a Barchetta starting up first time after a decade or more in a garage in real life.

The idea of a car as a symbol of individual liberty is all very well too, but if you want to write a song about the egalitarian nature of a car owning society, a Ferrari isn't really the best metaphor is it? Let Them Drive Barchettas - as Ayr Rand might have said.

3. Little Deuce Coupe by The Beach Boys

Car songs by The Beach Boys are always good for a laugh.

Not only can they not pronounce 'coupe' correctly, but amongst the virtues of their Hot Rod is something called a 'four on the floor'. This sounds pretty cool, but it actually translates as a four speed manual gearbox. Even my dad's old Lada had one of them.

They also go on to say that when they accelerate 'it's hard to steer', which does suggest something fundamentally wrong with the car. It's not something you usually read in a sales brochure, anyway.

Still, you don't drive a car like that for the handling, and you don't listen to the Beach Boys for meaningful lyrics. Maybe they were just a Barber's Shop Quartet with guitars, but these songs from before Brian Wilson blew his mind on LSD have a certain naive charm.

After that I guess he didn't drive so much.

2. Mercedes Benz by Janis Joplin

They say irony died when Henry Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize, but it was well and truly cremated when this song was used to advertise Mercedes Benz.

I'd always listened to it as a pastiche of consumer society; someone asking God for a car, a TV and a round of drinks, so either I missed something or people really don't listen to lyrics any more.

Joplin didn't even own a Mercedes, she had a  Porsche 356, like the one James Dean drove, only psychedelic. Mercedes in the sixties were cars for people who found Volvos too exciting.

Not that there's anything fundamentally wrong with them. They did do stylish and sporting as well as solid and dependable, like the "Pagoda" model pictured. But speed was always hand in hand with safety and sound engineering, so if there's a car that is at ninety degrees to the live-fast-and-die young ethic of rock, it's a Mercedes.

Also, if you wanted to find a performer whose style reflected the precision engineering of the Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft you wouldn't really pick the gravel voiced Janice Joplin, who sounds more like an old Trabant running without any oil.

1.Dead Man's Curve by Jan and Dean

It wasn't just the Beach Boys who had trouble with corners. Judging by the profusion of roads in America featuring a bend called Dead Man's Curve, the entire country seems to have a problem with anything curvier than Kate Moss.

(I should hastily add here before I am flamed from across the pond that one American at least has figured out how to make his car go round corners)

They even made a TV movie in the seventies called The California Kid, in which an evil Sheriff bumps off reckless drivers by making them take a corner too fast. The bend in question was a gentle right hander a Morris Marina could have taken flat, so I thought frankly they all deserved what they got - which sort of spoilt the film a bit for me.

(Note to my American friends - this, guys, is a tight corner.)

Jan and Dean may look squeaky clean to us today, but in their day they were pretty far out and according to rock critic Dave Marsh they should be regarded as proto-punks.

This song is generally considered to be about the one on Sunset Boulevard. It was written for the boys by Brian Wilson and is about a Corvette Stingray driver who has a race with Jaguar E Type which ends in them both failing to negotiate the titular corner. I can only assume the Jag had bald tires or was going twice as fast, as it had far better handling than the 'vette.

You'd have thought Jan and Dean would have learnt the lesson of the song and driven something with decent roadholding, but no, just two years later Jan Berry was trundling around Beverley Hills in his own Corvette, not far from Deadman's Curve, when he lost control and totalled the car.

Miraculously he survived, although it took him a year to recover, and he lived to the ripe old (by rock star standards) age of 62.

The crash may have wrecked his car, but it did the duos career no harm at all and they were still performing into the new millennium.

The accident certainly made the duo infamous, but hopefully rock stars acting out their own songs won't become a habit. I wouldn't be too bothered if Morrisey really was miserable now or James parked their behinds for a moment, but not only would be it be rather gross if Dexy's Midnight Runners did that to Eileen, but do we really want Liam Gallagher to live forever?

Given The Works

How fast were the classic rally cars of forty or fifty years ago?

They certainly seemed pretty quick to little me as I watched them flash past, but then I had nothing to compare them with apart from my dad's Lada.

Contemporary rally guides list brake horsepower and sometimes power to weight ratios, but these only give comparative figures and you can't rely on manufacturers figures anyway.

What I really wanted to know was how they compared to the cars I knew, or at least knew about.

Could Bodie and Doyle see off an Opel Kadett GTE in their Capri? Could James Bond outdrag a Sunbeam Lotus in his Aston Martin? And could my favourate rally car of all, the Lancia Stratos, compare at all with the world's fastest road going Ferrari?

Fortunately for us the magazine Autocar tested these cars and between 1965 and 1982 they rigged up their fifth wheels and recorded in minute detail the performance of these rallying beasts.

These figures from these tests come with some fairly major caveats though.

Firstly Autocar usually got the cars after a major rally, so the vehicles could well be a little tired.

Secondly taking off from a standing start is not natural for a competition car with a close ratio gearbox. First gear tends to be quite high, as a car club colleague found out when he tried production car trials in his rallying Skoda, and unless you get some wheelspin the engine is usually off cam once the clutch starts to bite.

A better test would be 30-70 or similar, but as 0-60mph appears to be the universal benchmark of performance, so these are the figures we'll use.

Here they are.

1967 BMC Mini Cooper 1275S - 9.7 sec
1969 Lancia Fulvia 1-6 HF Coupe - 9.6 sec
1967 Ford Lotus Cortina Mk 2 - 9.4 sec
1970 Datsun 240Z - 9.0 sec
1971 Alpine Renault 1600S - 8.8 sec
1965 Austin Healey 3000 - 8.2 sec
1978 Opel Kadett GTE - 8.0 sec
1968 Ford Escort Twin Cam - 7.9 sec
1971 Ford Escort RS1600 - 7.0 sec
1980 Saab 99 Turbo - 6.4 sec
1976 Ford Escort RS1800 - 5.9 sec
1978 Fiat 131 Abarth - 5.8 sec
1979 Triumph TR7 V8 - 5.2 sec
1981 Vauxhall Chevette 2300HSR - 5.1 sec
1980 Talbot Sunbeam Lotus - 5.0 sec
1981 Opel Ascona 400 - 5.0 sec
1982 Audi Quattro - 4.9 sec
1978 Lancia Stratos - 4.9 sec

The first question that leaps out from these figures is, how did the Mini Cooper and the Alpine Renault ever win anything? Mainly due to good handling and better teamwork rather than grunt, as you can see. 

In many ways these figures don't tell us anything we couldn't have guessed from the rallies themselves, namely that rally cars got a damn sight faster as the seventies progressed and that the Startos and Quattro were PDQ.

You also see what an amazing machine the Austin Healey 3000 was. It was rallying's first homologation special, and despite limited suspension travel which meant bumps were usually absorbed by the sump guard and the drivers bottom, it could probably have still been a winner in the early seventies if its various special tweaks hadn't been outlawed by rule changes.

The Opel Kadett was tested in Group 1 form. Although hardly a standard road car, it's notable that it still beat the top flight sixties machines.

It's interesting to compare these cars though with the top road going cars Autocar tested at this time.

The 3 litre Capri, which was the car every Old Spice wearing seventies man wanted, managed 0-60 in 8.6 secs, which is well behind the top Group 4 cars. To get equivalent performance we need to look at the supercars that Autocar tested.

In 1977 they clocked the Aston Martin Vantage doing 0-60 in 5.4 secs and the next year they gave the Ferrari 512BB a spin and it managed 0-60 in 6.2 secs, which makes it slower than all the rear wheel drive Group 4 cars.

Seeing as how the Ferrari has a nearly five litre engine, you may wonder where Enzo was going wrong when his top car can be ragged off at the lights by a Ford Escort.

Admittedly, being a road car you could make it faster by stripping out the cladding, stereo, jacuzzi and whatever else they fit to Ferraris and Aston Martins (probably a drinks cabinet), but to make it a rally car you'd have to add a roll cage, fire extinguishers and lots of under body protection so you'd probably be back to where you started from.

Equally you can tune the engines, but then you can do the same for the rally cars. By narrowing the power band up to 20bhp more could probably be wrung out of those engines, but that would make them virtually undriveable on a special stage.

You get the answer when you look at the top speeds. The Escort is geared out to 120mph, which is actually pretty fast for a rally car. This "lets the trees whip past quite quick enough for me" said Roger Clark. The Ferrari meanwhile was peddled at 163mph by the Autocar team and the Aston Martin was estimated to be good for 170.

In other words there was nothing wrong with the either machine, they're just  designed for something different. The rally car is just optimised to race to 100mph whilst remaining as small and light as possible.

However as any drag racer will tell you, the real test of a car is not 0-60, but how fast it can do the quarter mile.

Now these figures too come with a caveat. With the low gearing used on rally stages many of these cars were getting to their maximum revs in top gear and in the case of the Lotus Cortina it had actually red lined. The TR7 V8 was also being tested without a fifth gear, which probably didn't help.

Anyway, here are the quarter mile figures.

1967 Ford Lotus Cortina Mk 2 - 17.1 sec
1971 Alpine Renault 1600S - 17.1 sec
1967 BMC Mini Cooper 1275S - 16.8 sec
1969 Lancia Fulvia 1-6 HF Coupe - 16.7 sec
1978 Opel Kadett GTE - 16.3 sec
1970 Datsun 240Z - 16.0 sec
1968 Ford Escort Twin Cam - 15.9 sec
1965 Austin Healey 3000 - 15.6 sec
1980 Saab 99 Turbo - 14.8 sec
1971 Ford Escort RS1600 - 14.7 sec
1978 Fiat 131 Abarth -14.6 sec
1976 Ford Escort RS1800 - 14.5 sec
1980 Talbot Sunbeam Lotus - 14.0 sec
1981 Opel Ascona 400 - 13.9 sec
1979 Triumph TR7 V8 - 13.7 sec
1981 Vauxhall Chevette 2300HSR - 13.7 sec
1982 Audi Quattro - 13.7 sec
1978 Lancia Stratos - 13.5 sec

The main gainer here is the Triumph TR7 V8 which, once it's tires had stopped scrabbling for grip, was reeling in the opposition and I suspect if they'd run a race over 500m would have come home the winner. But also look how fast the big Healey is, nipping at the tail of the late seventies cars.

It's also interesting to see the Ford Escort and the Fiat 131 so close together. They were on the stages too, but that was generally assumed to be because the Fiat had better handling but the Escort the better engine. The Autocar team pretty much agree on this too, but the stop watch doesn't appear to show much difference at all.

However the supercars were also catching up by now, with the Ferrari also recording a 13.7 sec quarter mile and the Aston Martin bettering that with a straight 13, beating even the Stratos.

But as in rallying the co-driver very rarely gets to say "straight 400" this doesn't really matter. On real roads, rally cars are still the ultimate.

Stratos versus the RAC

The Lancia Stratos so dominated the World Rally Championship in the mid seventies that it's more interesting to discuss the rallies it didn't win than those it did.

A series of disasters afflicted their three expeditions to the Safari, the rough roads of Greece took their toll year after year and they never bothered to send such a nervous car to the smooth, fast roads of Finland. However the rally that the Stratos really should have won is our own RAC rally.

Fords dominated the event, but I wasn't the only spectator shivering by the side of the stage waiting for the Boreham boxes to pass so we could see - and hear - the exotic Italian supercar. If the Stratos looked out of place in the middle of Africa, it seemed no more at home in a cold, and frequently wet, British forest.

This was a rally the car really should have won at least once. Here's the story of how they failed.

1974

The Stratos was homologated in 1 October 1974 and by the time of the RAC Rally had already won two World Rallies. Sandro Munari brought the car to Britain and with his regular co-driver ill and himself suffering from food poisoning he was content to settle for third behind Timo Makinen's Ford Escort RS1600 and Stig Blomqvists Saab 96 V4.

However he's scored several fastest times on the way and had shown the car's potential. British fans took note.

Autosport journalist Peter Newton wrote of the experience "A deep musical throb among the distant trees, then with a bark of triumph, the Stratos leaps out of the gloom into the sunlight, its driver corrects and the red-and-white projectile hurls itself at the straining watchers on the corner. The sheer speed of its arrival takes everyone by surprise.."

1975

Before....

Lancia now realised they had a car that could take on the world, but expecting Munari to do all the driving was asking a bit too much of him, so they recruited Swedish ace Bjorn Waldegard to help out. Waldegard had made his name in Porsches and was expected to win the tricky northern European rounds, leaving Munari to take the glory on the other events.

Well, that was the plan anyway.

On the 1975 RAC Waldegard was flying in the new Alitalia liveried car. Literally. After 16 stages he had set 6 fastest times and was comfortably in the lead. He then flew too high on a yump in Pickering and broke a drive shaft. Mechanics changed it on the stage (that was legal then) but at a cost of one hour of delay and all of his rear bodywork.

.... and after.

Waldegard continued in the event and continued to set fastest times, but he'd been OTL and was also running without brake lights, rear lights and a rear number plate.

Exclusion was the result and with Munari crashing out it was Lancia nil points.

1976

He should have got his revenge the next year, but it all went wrong in San Remo.

Waldegard had ended the penultimate stage four seconds ahead of Munari. As it wouldn't do for the top Italian rally driver to be beaten on home soil Waldegard was instructed to let his team mate win. Waldegard came to the start of the last stage and was waved away. The car didn't move for four seconds. With everything square he then blasted off at full speed to win the stage, by four seconds.

Lancia were not impressed and sacked him on the spot. Ford signed him immediately and started cobbling a car together for the RAC.

Munari was again the lone Lancia on the rally. He set a few fastest times - including at the New Brighton spectator stage where little me was undergoing my RAC baptism - but mostly he appeared to not want to be there. Indeed the entire team appeared to have a case of the blues.

He eventually finished fourth, just behind Waldegard, who was busy telling the press he'd have won the event in a Stratos.

A second car, run by the British Chequered Flag team and driven by Per Inge Walfridsson  struggled before retiring with electric problems in Yorkshire.

Shortly afterwards the world found out what had caused the long faces in the Lancia camp. Fiat group headquarters had decided that next year the Fiat team in their 131 Abarths was to be given priority in World Championship.

1977

Turin only allowed Lancia to enter four World rounds in '77, but fortunately for us, one was the RAC.

Munari was again the only Stratos man, and again he struggled with the conditions and the secret stages.

At the end of the first day he was fourth, at the end of the second he was fifth and by half way he was ninth. The Stratos's gearbox then jammed in gear, loosing him an hour, but he carried on for the fans and eventually managed 25th, setting a fastest time on the last stage.

1978

This was to be the Stratos's last year as an official rally car, although once again Fiat were given priority in the WRC. Former Fiat man Markku Alen had switched to a Stratos for the San Remo rally, swapping cars with Walter Rohrl who had been campaigning it in Germany. He'd won the rally after the German launched his Fiat off a cliff.

Alen thought the car would be more suitable than the 131 for the RAC and so he and Munari entered their red, white and black Pirelli cars for what was supposed to be the last official outing for a works Stratos.

The press made the most of the occasion and Lancia managed some secret tire testing at Donnington whilst giving motoring journalists a ride in the car.

Thanks perhaps to this Alen stormed into a lead over the Sunday 'Mickey Mouse' stages and prepared for 'Maximum Attack' in the forests. However he was now entering Escort country.

The RS1800 had grown into the RS, with 15 inch wheels and various other tweaks. The Stratos meanwhile was going backwards, with its 24 valve engine banned.

Through Yorkshire Mikkola and Alen swapped fastest times, then in Kielder Mikkola turned it up to eleven. He beat Alen by thirty seconds in Hamsterly to take the lead and then took two minutes off the Stratos in next two stages.

Alen hung on grimly for a while, but was last seen by the side of the road in Twiglees with the back open. An Italian mechanic, asked to explain, just gave some exaggerated hand gestures and said "Mayonnaise..." The official reason was given as gearbox failure. With Munari parked up with electrical problems, that was that.

1979

Or that should have been that.

However next year Alen was back with another Stratos. Lancia had found an old car for him and it had been prepared by a private garage. For a while there was a second Stratos on the entry list, for Bernard Darniche, who'd won two rallies that year and retired whilst leading two more, but in the end the Frenchman was a no-show in Chester.

Once again Alen led over the Sunday stages, and once again he was overtaken in the forests. He pulled a bit of time back later in the rally in the fog, but eventually could only manage fifth.

1981

In 1981 British fans got their first sight of the Audi Quattro and the little Renault 5 Turbo. But for me there was only one car to see, Markku Alen driving another museum piece Stratos. And I finally got his autograph.

Unfortunately he was never on the pace and eventually put the car into a ditch in the Scottish borders.

That really was that.

2005 - 2012

The RAC itself turned into the Network Q and then got itself stuck in south Wales, eventually becoming the Wales Rally GB.

However there were still people who remembered what it used to be like, and so in 2004 the De Lacy motorclub launched the Roger Albert Clark rally for historic two wheel drive rally cars.

In 2005 alco-pop king and former British Rally Champion Steve Perez entered a Lancia, and it was time for the next generation of little Porters to see a Stratos in action.

His classic car was never able to keep up with latest Escorts, some of which have some very un-seventies mods, but he was the fans favourite. There is still nothing like the sound of an Italian V6 coming through the dark, and no rally car before or since - including the Ford RS200 - has ever matched its lines.

It may never have won an RAC, but for British rally fans, the Stratos is still a very special car.