On This Day 39 Years Ago

I’m afraid to admit, but I remember the Road & Track that month! Yipes, said Angela! Yeah, those headlights really affected how fast those Minis were! It was a stain on the Monte for years, and sadly a reflection of the racing scene in general back in the ’60′s – Le Mans had its share of scrutineering mysteries back then involving Brit cars, as well. Lotus quit factory efforts there after one notorious row. How did Ferrari homologate so many cars with promised production runs that never materialized, while BMC, Ford and Porsche had to actually MAKE the cars?

Even L’Equipe, the French sporting newspaper which had been slating the Monte Minis, had to admit after examining the evidence that it was pretty much rigged for Citroen. The rather arcane regs had been re-written to make it hard for English cars that were modified in any way to win, but BMC and Ford were well able to pull more performance out of their cars, and Citroen wasn’t.

You’ll notice the next year, the Minis won again, with an essentially stock Mini, because once again, the regs had been re-written to make stock cars have a points advantage over modded ones. So what happened? BMC and the Flying Finns yumped their way to victory anyway. An excellent source is “The Works Minis”, by Peter Browning, essential for all Mini owners, IMHO. Minis have had to overcome a lot over the years.

      BCNU,
    Rob in Dago

Did they ever??

+++RB

Funny, this weekend on a whim I rented “A Man and a Woman” by Claude Lelouche. His 9-minute “Rondevouz” is incredible motoring, as any who’ve seen it will attest. Anyways, turns out one of the main characters in the movie is a race car driver for Ford, and takes part in this very rally championing a Mustang… while preparing for the race, a team member voices concern about the Coopers! They even talk about the problems over the disqualifications…