FEATURE: SOUTH AFRICAN SPECIALS Firenza CanAm rally car in action, with Jan Hettema driving.
Mazda rotary engine on its way into a 323.
Italian engineering talents proved less successful than Rory Byrne’s later tenure at Ferrari, and the development was scrapped after just a few events. Mazda was having a fantastic run of success in Group N racing with its RX-2 and as the RWD 323 had become a best seller, the idea of a rotary-engined 323 was there to be used. Engineer/drivers, Colin Burford and Andre Liebenberg, built the car for Mazda and Liebenberg rallied it with some success, though the flamespewing exhaust had a tendency to
cook the feet of the crew and risk setting fire to forest stages. Most of these developments petered out by the late 1970s when exact copies of Boreham Escort RS1800s were being built by Bernie Marriner for Ford in Port Elizabeth. Toyota was building cars in close co-operation with Japan and TTE, Nissan was doing much the same, and General Motors was using ‘Chevairs’ (Opel Asconas) with Blydenstein engines. From 1976-1983 these sophisticated Euro/Japanese powered cars would
dominate the South African rallying scene and attract the likes of Tony Pond, Roger Clark, Hannu Mikkola, Ove Andersson, Per Eklund, Sandro Munari, Rauno Aaltonen, Jimmy McRae, Jochi Kleint, Pentti Airikkala, Leif Asterhag and many other European drivers to come and compete in the country. And then it all changed in 1985, when the Audi Quattro arrived and was put in the hands of ‘SuperVan’ Sarel Daniel van der Merwe. But that is another story for another day... - LEON JOUBERT
KIWIS GO MAD FOR AP4
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Tony Gosling has purchased Force Motorsport’s Mazda 2 AP4.
Greg Murphy (right) is excited about the new AP4+ Barinas to run in the 2017 NZRC. 66 | RALLYSPORT MAGAZINE - SEPTEMBER 2016
mongst rumours of another five AP4 based cars coming to fruition for the 2017 New Zealand Rally Championship, the RDL Performance team are hard at work preparing their two Holden Barinas for former Bathurst winner, Greg Murphy, and Josh Marston. “Both cars have about 2-3 days of fabrication work left in them and they’ll be ready for paint,” explains Marston. “The body kit is half done already as well, it’s progressing nicely.” Under the skin, both cars will comply with the recently announced AP4+ rules that allow an 1800cc engine with a higher 1300kg weight limit. The engine will be based on an ‘Ecotec’ engine, which will be stroked back from two-litre, while the cars will run the same Sadev drivetrain run in the Hawkeswood Mazda, Inkster Skoda and Paddon Hyundai that were campaigned in 2016. The team is currently working towards a first public outing at Rod Millen’s Leadfoot Festival on February 4-5. - BLAIR BARTELS