P76
by BARRY LLOYD
There it was, half covered by a hotch-potch of old titles, and I
almost missed it! A copy of Evan Green’s book, A BOOT FULL OF RIGHT
ARMS priced at one dollar. I already have a copy but I couldn’t resist
a bargain, especially as I was able to tell the owner of the second-hand
bookshop (after the deal was done, of course), “I know blokes who
would pay $50 for this.”
“Must be mad.” Was his
reply.
“No. Just members of a P76 car club.”
Actually A Boot Full of Right
Arms has been a great comfort to P76 enthusiasts for 15 years, although
most of the laughter and derision about the car has now died down. You
may recall Cliff Chambers article ‘Good as Gold’ in Modern Motor on
the 10 best collectable cars in which he warned against laughing at
‘Australia’s greatest automotive joke’. The growing band of P76
enthusiasts has resulted in prices rising from around $1,500 10 years
ago, to eight and nine thousand now. But in the bad old days, when
owning a P76 would guarantee you at least one dose of derisive flak per
day, it was useful to quote from Evan’s book to illustrate the
incredible performance of the car in the 1974 World Cup Rally from
London, through the Sahara and on to Munich. An event something like
half a dozen World Rally Championship courses strung together, with a
Paris-Dakar inserted in the middle. It covered 17,000km through 14
countries.
The rally was remarkable for a number of reasons, including the
finishers statistics. Only five of the original 52 completed the course.
The greatest winning margin of any rally was posted by Jim Reddiex, Ken
Tubman and Andre Welinski, the only other Australians in the event. They
finished 28½ hours ahead of the next car.
But if the Rally was extraordinary, the book about it was more
so. Had it been a work of fiction, it would have stretched the
imagination past breaking point; but it was 10 times more remarkable
because it was true.
The P76 doubting Thomases were invariably astonished to read of
the car’s ability to annihilate well respected rally cars in
mountains, forests, deserts and snow, in spite of its ungainly
dimensions (for a rally car) and its limited preparation for the event.
The know-alls and the doubters nodded sagely after the first two forest
stages between London and Southampton. The P76 was in 49th
place – fourth last as the field drove onto the channel ferry for Le
Havre. They didn’t know the reason for the poor position was a
recurring fuel blockage. Things were different on the 2,000km run
through the mountains in France and Spain down to the ferry at Algeciras
where, with fuel blockage cured, the car made up 41 places; only missing
fastest time by 2 seconds from Andrew Cowan in his Ford Escort.
Rally drivers often say ‘we weren’t going flat out’ when in
fact they were, but Evan, in this untried and untested car, was
concerned about unknown factors like the rate of tyre and brake wear and
worried about limited spares and servicing arrangements. Accordingly, he
had driven at less than the car’s capabilities to conserve it for the
unknown horrors that lay ahead in Africa. It was just as well. The new
tyres and brake pads arranged for Algeciras had not arrived and a brave
effort to get two tyres and some essential spare parts to them at
Morocco failed by just one hour. So Evan and John Bryson drove off the
ferry into North Africa on worn tyres and brakes heading up into the
Atlas mountains then out into the Sahara resolving to proceed ‘briskly
but with caution’ on the 9,000km run through Africa. Breaking the car
trying to race people was not on Evan’s agenda.
Stirling Moss, the most famous British racing driver since World
War 2, approached things differently. Well known for his lack of
mechanical sympathy, he made up six minutes on Cowan’s Escort in the
first 60km through the mountains. Andrew had done a practice run a month
earlier and was driving as fast as he dared. Moss’s Mercedes overtook
him, “at an incredible pace, quivering in the ruts and bouncing high
in the air, defying destruction.” Progress of this sort is bound to be
short-lived, and it was. Another 10km and the Merc was halted with
collapsed front suspension; one side a full 100mm shorter than the
other.
Using the huge torque of the V8, Evan and John powered through
the sand at over 100km/h drawing away from some of Europe’s best like
an express train might leave a fettler’s trolley. After 24 hours in
Africa, with Zasada’s Porsche Carrera and Cowan’s Escort well behind
them, they took the lead in the event.
John Bryson was one of the great navigators of the ’60s and
’70s. There were occasions he was right when every other navigator was
wrong. I recall in the 1967 BP rally in Victoria, John and I entered a
maze of tracks in the Victorian Alps with about 30 cars in front of us
and reached the control point at the other end fifth. It was a display
of pathfinding that left me speechless. At the next mealbreak I made
enemies of several well known navigators with a tongue-in-cheek answer
to their question: “That section was diabolical; how did JB get you
through so fast?”
I motioned them close to me
and said furtively, “Don’t let on, but John has this brilliant trick
I’ve not seen before.”
“Yes, yes,” they chorused
breathlessly, “what is it?”
Adopting my most serious look,
I confided in them. “When in Victoria, he uses a map of Queensland
upside down. It works wonders.” Navigators are a touchy lot and apt to
take themselves quite seriously. Some of them spoke to me a year later
– others never.
Navigating the P76 in the World Cup Rally, John used his uncanny
abilities many times where the instructions were poor and the track not
visible, but 500km past Adrar on the way to Tamanrasset the P76 crew
encountered new road works and a maze of tracks. The route instructions,
written six months earlier, were of no value as the whole pattern of
tracks had altered. At this point Evan and John, two and a half hours
ahead of the next car, could only guess in the black desert night where
the correct road might be. The track they chose led them through an area
of high sand dunes then petered out. They had crossed the dunes up the
easy slope and down the steep one. Retracing their steps meant pounding
the front end on the approach so much that a front strut broke.
The mess of road works had caused the field to spread in all
directions hunting for the elusive ‘piste’ leading to Tamanrasset.
When daylight came, the road workers helped to regroup some of the
competitors; others were lost for days and fears were held for their
survival. Back on the right road, the P76 limped over the ruts and
corrugations until the second strut broke and the spring bounced out
from under the wheel arch, ending their progress; still a day’s drive
short of Tamanrasset.
But they had tasted the car’s ability to gobble up both the
opposition and the desert and they wanted more, so they shut defeat from
their minds and John hitch-hiked to Tamanrasset returning in a hired
Land Rover with mechanic Brian Hope and two new struts. Thirty six hours
after their enforced stop they reached the Tamanrasset control point –
still in the event and amazed to find themselves in 16th
place as the field re-grouped for the 2,200km run north to Tunis through
the worst of the Sahara.
Eighteen hundred km short of Tunis, with no hope of spares or
help, another strut broke. The ensuing drive that got the P76 to Tunis
is an epic in itself and makes any fictional adventures a joke. From
Tunis it was only 6,000km to the finish at Munich. The horrors of the
Sahara were left behind but not the memories. Many of those who made it
through swore never again to set foot in the place. Stirling Moss and
his crew for 2 days looked death in the face at Fort Serenhout before
rescue came. Moss had defied death many times in his career,
particularly in open road sports car races like the Mille Miglia, but
the prospect of a slow lingering departure he found quite disturbing.
I sometimes smile at the grandiose model names attached to
bonnets, guards and boots of vehicles, knowing that they have never
really earned them; they mostly come from design department imagination
men. But when you see the occasional P76 Targa Florio you will know the
tag was truly earned in competition. The Targa Florio circuit winds for
72km through the mountains of Sicily near Palermo and the race of the
same name has been an annual event since 1906. Safety considerations led
to its abandonment in the mid ’70s but it was used as the super
special stage in the World Cup Rally and a special trophy had been
donated for fastest time.
I quote Evan Green: “I felt like trying. The car was sound
again, its tyres were new and the memory of our disappointments in the
desert was still strong. It was good to work off some steam and what
better place than the world’s most historic race circuit. It was
exhilarating motoring. I was surprised how well the big car responded;
it could even be flung into corners in some semblance of a four-wheel
drift and held in the slide by throttle control alone.” Using
5,000rpm, braking hard, ignoring the drops over the side, the nearness
of stone walls, spectators and occasional donkey carts, Evan brought the
car to a stop at the end of the section where, “a stinking blue cloud
of smoke from the front brakes enveloped us.” When all the times were
taken they had won the trophy by a margin of 66 seconds.
There are now more P76 Targa Florios around than were ever made,
as some of the ‘smarties’ turn their ordinary machines into ‘Targas’.
Hard to pick from the real ones unless you’re an expert.
After 20 days and 17,000km the field was reduced to 19 (though
only 5 had done the whole course) and only the Grossglockner Pass
separated them from Munich and the final control point; however it was
blocked with snow and a minor road over the mountains was used as an
alternative.
The P76 passed a dozen competitors on the snow covered climb, to
finish in 13th place. Not a brilliant result on paper, but
when you are next tempted to pass a derisive remark about P76s, remember
the 52 crews of the World Cup Rally.
Not one of them would dare.
