2 minute read

1976 Welsh Rally

WESTERN MAIL INTERNATIONAL

WELSH RALLY 1976

Advertisement

9 MAY 1976

We drove up to Wales to start the latest adventure in my friend Garry’s 1967 Silver Sand 96V4.

This was one of the hottest May’s that I had watched this rally at the time, some of you older readers may remember the summer of 1976 at least in England as being Hot. This however brought some other challenges while watching, for example the dusty stages.

That year, the rally was dominated by two drivers, Ari Vatanen and local crowd favorite Russell Brookes. Unfortunately for the Saab fans, in this rally, the Saab crews had problems and did not finish the race.

We took a picture of Stig’s Silver 99 EMS at the start, we never got any more pictures as he retired early in the rally. We were really disappointed that we never got to see Stig on any of the stages. At least we got to see some 96 V4’s. I can’t remember who drove the other two 96 V4’s Car 79 and 86, or whether they finished.

ADVENTURE AFTER THE RALLY

On the last day of the Rally, Garry wanted to drive straight home that evening. We were both very tired, after a few days of “sleeping” in the front seats of the car (the 96’s front seats aren’t that good for sleeping, especially for Garry being 6.6ft,

or thereabouts).

Anyway, I was giving the route to Garry and then “resting my eyes” until the next junction, then all of a sudden the car started shaking and vibrating, as we ran over a kerb and some rough ground, I woke up just in time to see a concrete bollard appearing in front of us, hitting the front of the car, steam starting to pour out of the radiator. We were back on the road within a few seconds and we stopped to inspect the damage. Garry’s expert driving had placed the bollard exactly between the two Cibie Super Oscars and were completely undamaged, the same couldn’t be said for the radiator, front bumper, grill, and concrete bollard.

The bollard had been knocked completely down as we drove over it, only remaining in place (but now horizontal) by the steel reinforcing bars. As it was late and nothing was open, we decided to find somewhere nearby to pull over for the night.

The next day with plenty of plastic padding and an overheating engine, not helped by the good weather being 25 degrees. We could only drive for about 15 mins before stopping to refill the radiator driving for another 15 mins refilling the radiator again etc; you get the picture. After an hour or so of driving we luckily found a breakers yard.

Unfortunately, there were no 96V4’s to plunder, in fact no Saabs at all, however after a look around the entire yard, the best fit from what was available looked like a Ford Anglia radiator. Which after a bit of “adjustment” got us back home to fight another day.

This article is from: