{"id":7692,"date":"2021-03-07T16:22:53","date_gmt":"2021-03-07T15:22:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pudenitroz.se\/blogg\/?p=7692"},"modified":"2021-03-09T09:51:18","modified_gmt":"2021-03-09T08:51:18","slug":"from-opera-house-to-opera-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pudenitroz.se\/blogg\/?p=7692","title":{"rendered":"From Opera House to Opera House"},"content":{"rendered":"

Den 14 Augusti 1977 s\u00e5 startade v\u00e4rldens mest extrema rally utanf\u00f6r Covent Garden Opera House i London, 30.000km skulle avverkas innan m\u00e5lg\u00e5ng vid ett annat k\u00e4nt opera hus Sydney Opera House .<\/p>\n

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Totalt 69 ekipage kom till start och gav sig iv\u00e4g p\u00e5 den strapatsrik resan, bilen som intreserar mig mest och som \u00e4r orsaken till att ni kan l\u00e4sa om rallyt just h\u00e4r \u00e4r bil nummer 7.<\/p>\n

Bil nummer 7 var n\u00e4mligen en vackert Coca Cola sponsrad Mini Moke California, och fr\u00e5gan var skulle den orka hela v\u00e4gen hem till d\u00e4r den en g\u00e5ng var f\u00f6dd?<\/p>\n

Men f\u00f6rst lite bakgrunds historia om rally:<\/strong>
\nF\u00f6rsta g\u00e5ngen rally k\u00f6rdes var 1968, id\u00e9n till rally tog form under en lunch i slutet av 1967, det r\u00e5dde snodd p\u00e5 depression i Storbritannien orsaad av en kraftig devalvering av pundet.<\/p>\n

Sir Max Aitken , \u00e4gare av Daily Express och tv\u00e5 av hans n\u00e4rmaste m\u00e4n Jocelyn Stevens och Tommy Sopwith, best\u00e4mde sig f\u00f6r att skapa en h\u00e4ndelse som deras tidning kunde sponsra och som skulle skapa rubriker och h\u00f6ja landets hum\u00f6r.<\/p>\n

Rally skulle ocks\u00e5 fungera som en utst\u00e4llning f\u00f6r brittisk teknik och skulle \u00f6ka exportf\u00f6rs\u00e4ljningen i de l\u00e4nder som passerades i rally.<\/p>\n

Prispengar
\nVinnaren \u00a310.000 Andrew Cowan<\/a><\/span> i en Hillman Hunter<\/a><\/span>
\nAndraplats \u00a33.000 Paddy Hopkirk<\/a><\/span> i en Austin 1800<\/a><\/span>
\nTredjeplats \u00a32.000 Ian Vaughan\u00a0<\/span>i en Ford XT Falcon GT<\/a><\/span>
\nLucien Bianchi ledde inf\u00f6r sista etappen i en Citroen DS21 men r\u00e5kade ut f\u00f6r en alvarlig olycka endast 15 mil fr\u00e5n m\u00e5lg\u00e5ng.<\/p>\n

Men nu till det betydligt intressantare \u00e5ret 1977<\/strong><\/p>\n

S\u00e5 h\u00e4r fr\u00e4sch ser man ut efter 3000 mil i en Mini Moke<\/p>\n

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Bilen k\u00f6rdes av dansken Hans Jeppe Tholstrup i par med Australiensaren John Crawford.<\/p>\n

Det blev en h\u00e4ndelserik resa f\u00f6r det dansk australienska teamet, efter otaliga mekaniska utmaningar s\u00e5 lyckade de ta sig i m\u00e5l p\u00e5 en hedersam 35 plats.<\/p>\n

Det viktigaste \u00e4r ju inte att vinna utan att fullf\u00f6lja och ”WE MADE IT”, och de blev \u00e5tminstone b\u00e4st placerad Mini, fullst\u00e4ndig resultatlista fr\u00e5n rallyt finner ni H\u00c4R<\/a><\/p>\n

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Bilen finns idag p\u00e5 The National Motor Museum i Birdwood i S\u00f6dra Australien<\/p>\n

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Hur tog de sig d\u00e5 fr\u00e5n London till Sydney, jag har l\u00e5nat texten nedan fr\u00e5n londonsydney77.com Vilken fantasist<\/p>\n

The Route Plan was for thirty days and nights of driving from London to Sydney the hard way…<\/p>\n

Opera House to Opera House was Wylton Dickson\u2019s idea. At the last minute, it was realised that getting the crowd barriers and ramp in front of the Covent Garden Opera House would be tricky, so, the start was moved back a few yards, around the corner and into the old vegetable market of Covent Garden. The back door of the Opera House was only just in view.<\/p>\n

From here it was a straight run through South London, across Blackheath Common, and on to Sheerness, on the North Kent Coast, for a cramped cabin in an overnight ferry to Flushing, Holland.<\/p>\n

Once on Continental soil, the route would now trek down miles of motorway picking up the cities that Singapore Airlines fly to. Time Controls at Amsterdam and Frankfurt before turning west, in the opposite direction of any logical route to India, for another control point in Paris. Here the offices of Singapore Airlines originally hoped to put on a breakfast and other festivities, but as we were all arriving so early in the morning, decided not to bother, there was just a hot-dog stall. The works teams like Cowan and Co, and Hopkirk, took off to nearby hotels. Others just sat around in the early morning sun.<\/p>\n

After Paris, it was a motorway haul to Milan. The rumour mill had started \u2013 some wag mischievously suggesting he saw Hopkirk in a taxi, must have been going to the airport for the \u201cfirst flight to Milan\u201d, although it could have been nothing more innocent than going for breakfast in a hotel.<\/p>\n

From Milan an 11 hour section down the coast of Yugoslavia took the rally to the first special stage. This first timed blat was a short haul in the hills above the present day Croatian holiday resort of Makarska. It was mostly rocky dirt, then tarmac. The special stage was included in the road section between time controls at Makarska and Cetinje, however, soon after ompleting the stage several crews realised that the distance in the route book appeared to be glaringly wrong. A bout of road-racing began as crews desparately tried to make the time to Cetinje located high above the Adriatic at the top of spectacular hill climb. It turned out that the special stage length had been left out of the overall distance to Cetinje. As it happened, it was a genuine mistake, rather than any attempt of a spot of Welsh road-rallying but became the subject of the first official protest to be lodged to the organisers…. the protest was rejected.<\/p>\n

The route then went to Veria, Loutropigi in central Greece, and finally down to Athens, the first rest-stop. As John Stathatos sums up in his book, The Long Drive:\u00a0\u201cAthens was to be a major rest halt with a 11-hour layover. The first car would leave at 1.30am the next morning, which should have given all crews ample time to recuperate, after four days and nights of non-stop driving.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0In fact, only the major works teams got the benefit, most of the rest were either playing catch up, so got far less sleep, or, were outside servicing the car. A total of 61 cars made it to the Athens Time Control.<\/p>\n

From Athens the rally became more competitive, with a route that went via Thessaloniki to Istanbul, then Baypazari, Ankara, Kayseri, Malatya, Van, and Tehran.<\/p>\n

From Van in Turkey, crews went via Tabriz to Tehran in Iran and on to Yazd, the start of 400 kilometres of flat out motoring across the Great Salt Desert to Tabas, then north-east to Fariman, just south of Mashad, and across Afghanistan to Herat, and Kandahar, to Kabul, the North West Passage, into Pakistan over the Khyber Pass to Rawalpindi, Lahore, Jullundar, Delhi, Jaipur, Ajmer, Udaipur, Ghodra, Baroda and Bombay.<\/p>\n

After Bombay, the event curled south and east to Poona and Bangalore to Madras and the plan was then for a ship to take the event on to Malaysia. This was delayed two days. From Penang, the event took in a couple of stages in rubber plantations, via Taiping, Ipoh, Tanjong Malim, Port Dickson on the coast, and then from Muar across the bottom of Malaysia to Labis, Kluang, Jemaluang, Johor Bahru to Singapore.<\/p>\n

A spot of tiger shooting of a different kind was now the top priority for Wylton Dickson and Jim Gavin. The boat wrangles sorted, along with the attempt to bring the London to Sydney to a full stop in Singapore also sorted, the event proceeded to Perth \u2013 late.<\/p>\n

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