London-Sydney Marathon 1968

[drakkie]

I have read a book of my dad years ago about this event.It was a report of the dutch team's experiences in this rally !They had an extremely though time with their tiny cars compared too all thise bigger ones.I was quite intrigued.I have reread the book last week.It really was one hell of an Marathon !!! While googling, i have found this great website:

http://marathon68.homestead.com/index.html

[henk4]

A very interesting finishing grid.

[drakkie]

A very interesting finishing grid.

indeed.The standing changed on the very last day dramatically because the french Citroen DS Driver Bianchi crashed and rolled over a few times.I think he or his navigator was killed in the accident.The standings changed a lot then,cos Bianchi was far ahead in the lead.He eventually managed to limp towards the finishline.

[Matra et Alpine]

The Citroen had FINISHED the competitive stages and were "touring" to the finish. Tragic

[drakkie]

The Citroen had FINISHED the competitive stages and were "touring" to the finish. Tragic

Were they ?I shall look it up this weekend.I will also translate some pieces of the book with nice stories. It must have been one hell of an adventure back then !

[Matra et Alpine]

IN Des O'Dell's report on the event. Des was Rootes compeition manager at the time and responsible for Cowan's car.

This is what he said back in '68 ....

Lucien Bianchi was first out of the stage and was clearly the winner. He stopped and I congratulated him on the win. Cowan was going to be out next as Simo Lampinen (who had been second) had crashed so we were second.

Bianchi got into the passenger seat to sleep on the run back to Sydney, leaving Jean Ogier at the wheel.

As he drove off, 'Singlet' asked if I wanted him to stop Bianchi winning. After such a long event, we were all tired and I did not quite realise what he was saying. Eventually I pointed out that, yes, I would love Cowan to win but there was now no opportunity, the event was effectively over.

"Have you ever heard of pointing the bones?" he asked. With that he pointed his fingers together and, as the Citroën drove away, muttered something in aborigine. Ten miles up the road, the car was hit by a Mini driven by two off-duty policemen. Bianchi had to be cut out of the wreckage and, because of that, Cowan went on to win...



scary ? huh ??

and an adventure it certainly was. Especially for Andrew Cowan. Limited funds in Rootes meant that he didnt' recce the event. Only getting as far as turkey IIRC !! SO the rest of it was unknown territory to the team !!!!


Des was a legend in rallying in the 60s and 7-s and continued to support it till his death in 99.
I snipped a memory someone wrote of him on his death. At his funeral LOTS of great drivers passed on "des o'dell stories" One of my favourites .....

Des took all the young hopeful rally drivers to see the Peugeot production line, from the main track a new 309 came off the production line every 4 minutes. He woudl say, "every 4 minutes, a new car, you know what that means?" none of us could see his logic, so we replied with comments like, you want us to look after them, the company is successful, "No" he replayed "that means that we can build them faster than you can crash them, so I don't want to hear anything about you not driving to your full potential!".

a great man !!!!

[drakkie]

Des took all the young hopeful rally drivers to see the Peugeot production line, from the main track a new 309 came off the production line every 4 minutes. He woudl say, "every 4 minutes, a new car, you know what that means?" none of us could see his logic, so we replied with comments like, you want us to look after them, the company is successful, "No" he replayed "that means that we can build them faster than you can crash them, so I don't want to hear anything about you not driving to your full potential!".

a great man !!!!

hahaha that is really a very good example of British Humor

The Dutch had done NO recce of the track at all.They just put some supplies and a carterpan protector and a bullbar on the car and took off. They were always quite fast on the muddy peces because of their "Variomatic" CVT transmission.The first brand/car to ever use this !

The drivers were:
Rob Slotemaker. He was one of the most succesul and famous Dutch racing drivers.He owned a own company in which they teached people how to recover from a drift. He learned the now still active dutch driver Jan Lammers how to drive. He was a help at Rob's business.One day he learned him some driving. (by the age of about 5 years). If people didn't perform as ould be expected , he called litlle Jan. Then he drove the cars perfectly. When the people got out again, he said: "If such a tiny child can do it, so should you !".

(Jan lammers are many gret stories about too. For example: When he had his own car a (tuned?) Renault 5,he drove very fat across the country.One day a police car with the police force's best driver started the chase. Reaching speeds of over 250 km/h in normal traffic !!! By then our police cars were still Porsche 911's After a long chase the police man gave up.The chase had lasted about 3-4 hours befor the police mans fuel ran out .Jan Lammers was barely 18. The police man later told that he thought he had to do with a professional racing driver like Jacky Ickx or something )

Rob Slotemaker fatally crashed in a Ford Mustang on the Zandvoort racetrack in the 70's.

The other driver was D.Van Lennep. I don't know much about him.Looking at the name he copuld be family of Gijs van Lennep (le mans winner)

[henk4]

As he drove off, 'Singlet' asked if I wanted him to stop Bianchi winning. After such a long event, we were all tired and I did not quite realise what he was saying. Eventually I pointed out that, yes, I would love Cowan to win but there was now no opportunity, the event was effectively over.

"Have you ever heard of pointing the bones?" he asked. With that he pointed his fingers together and, as the Citroën drove away, muttered something in aborigine. Ten miles up the road, the car was hit by a Mini driven by two off-duty policemen. Bianchi had to be cut out of the wreckage and, because of that, Cowan went on to win...

Is this story actually implying that the police mini deliberately hit the Citroen?
or that some aborigine witchcraft made that happen.

[drakkie]

Is this story actually implying that the police mini deliberately hit the Citroen?
or that some aborigine witchcraft made that happen.

i will check it later, but my memory of the book comes back.I think it mentioned "suspicious"conditions or something.

[Matra et Alpine]

It was always talked of as being "suspicious".
The quote is direct from Des O'Dell in his notes, so I take it as co-incidence , it's not just a "story".

[nota]

^ Implies the latter, pointing the bones is a death curse

Anyway .. great find Drakkie! It was a fabulous rally, I still remember the original L-S-M, and saw the second rally pass through 25 years later. For trivia the very same ex-LSR Falcon GT that came 3rd in the original event finished in 2nd place in the rerun. Next time ..

Seven Aussie teams in the top 14 finishers isn't too bad is it?

To reciprocate and hopefully of interest are these scans. The first two are of what was entailed in the preparation of those three Ford Aust Falcon GTs which did so well in the 1968 LSM, written by team-manager/builder/entrant (and local legend) Harry Firth who took obvious delight in blowing apart the more favoured euro Ford entries

[Matra et Alpine]

Harry Firth who took obvious delight in blowing apart the more favoured euro Ford entries

But lets' be honest they were ALL beaten really by a HUGE Citroen with funny suspension
THE scariest thing was that the landcrab came THIRD. I've since sat in that and spoken to the current owner who has restored it. ANOTHER huge car with funny suspension - jsut different funny than Citroen's.

Ford didn't have the Escort development complete and entered the 20 year old designed Ford Cortina with limited budget. THe next marathon saw the new Ford Escort and world domination in rallying for 30 years

IIRC all the crews didnt' really know the real challenge in Australia and a few hit 'roos. Lots of bent wishbones too. Hmm, gotta go dig out the old rally boks adn "relive" it. THe original Marathon rallies really were something else

The Aussie teams were cerainly the strongest built to survive the event. That local knowledge paid off in the other rough areas of the world too.

[nota]

But lets' be honest they were ALL beaten really by a HUGE Citroen with funny suspension

Sure and it was a cruel twist of fate for Bianchi, personally as a Citroen afficondo I among many others was hoping he'd win. But alas no, nor did Firth who claimed to be confident of a win while in 2nd and on a roll when he also struck trouble .. yep .. the ifs, buts & maybes as the saying goes

THE scariest thing was that the landcrab came THIRD. I've since sat in that and spoken to the current owner who has restored it. ANOTHER huge car with funny suspension - jsut different funny than Citroen's.

No, it was even scarier than that because the dowager came SECOND! The only thing more frightening was what actually won the event .. the Grunter

Austin 1800s are not considered a 'performance' vehicle are they? (btw my auntie bought a '65 brand new, it was a shocker - lugubrious & unreliable) Reputedly some of the BMC landcrab Marathon entries would barely make 90mph & the big Citroen with 4cyl-power can't have been a total ball of fire either .. not to mention the winning Hillman .. so I wonder how our US idolisers of hp/torque would rationalise the actual performance result of the slothish above-mentioned cars within this rally, eh?

For your amusement, Chrysler Oz (who also retailed Rootes Group cars) used to stamp the hubcaps of their locally-built Valiant models with the words 'Chrysler Australia' prominently shown. Through the years, the Valiant model-series were identified by a letter sequence system .. there was the VC, the VE, VF then VG Valiant etc .. but you may have noticed that the 'VD' model never appeared. When asked "why not?" by some local journo, a local Chryco exec dryly explained that it was for exactly the same reason that they didn't call themselves ..

'Chrysler Rootes Australia'

Ford didn't have the Escort development complete and entered the 20 year old designed Ford Cortina with limited budget.

Just curious .. you can't seriously mean that Cortinas were designed in 1948??

Btw although I can't provide a source, I do vaguely remember a specific claim through media here that despite their dismal result, Ford UK's budget far exceeded that of underdog Ford Aust who got the Teams Prize through Falcon GT finishing 3rd 5th & 8th. I hear BMC also spent a motza

IIRC all the crews didnt' really know the real challenge in Australia and a few hit 'roos. Lots of bent wishbones too. Hmm, gotta go dig out the old rally boks adn "relive" it. THe original Marathon rallies really were something else

Well the REAL challenge here was our bastard coppers. But yeah that '68 event captured & sustained the international general public's imagination like no motorsport event since, imo.

Matra my boyhood hero was the incomparable Gelignite Jack Murray, a truly wonderful larrakin who gets a charateristic mention in (Bill Tuckey's) page 10 of Drakkie's site. Somewhere I have a pic of Jack dressed only in bathers riding on waterskis and waving nonchalantly at the camera while on the Thames as he glides right past the UK House of Parliament, lol! Yes he got arrested. You might recall Zasada's Porsche which was totally enmeshed in roobars; legend has it the reason for this was totally down to Murray whose widly exaggurated roo horror stories so freaked Zasada in London that he, guided by Gelignite's 'sincere' advice & encouragement, had hastily entombed the 911 in steel tube just prior to kickoff (typically of course Gelignite was IIRC the only entrant to get taken out due to a roo - ROFL!)

The Aussie teams were cerainly the strongest built to survive the event. That local knowledge paid off in the other rough areas of the world too.

Although virtually unknown outside AU, those old local Falcons (ie: not the weak US ones) proved themselves as very competitive long-distance cars in many races AND rallys here & especially shone in tough events. But of course not as zippy in tight conditions as those fragile Lotus Cortinas, and wasn't Roger Clark a veritable missile when his car was still going.

To my recollection there was considerable disappointment voiced from many prime AU Marathon teams at the time opining that much of the Oz route was poorly chosen for their needs & not 'car-breaker' enough to press home their hoped-for local advantage from the expected (but often absent) EXTRA-harsh outback conditions

[bum]

He-he! Look there. It's a Moskvich 412 on the rally London-Sydney.

05.gif06.gif

I don't know, why this model on that site is named as Moskvich 408. It's not 408, it's 412!!! It's simply the first serie of 412 in the old 408 bodywork but with new 412 engine and transmission. And look: 4 cars was started and 4 cars was finished on the places 20, 22, 33, 38. Full grid!!! Not good? But what you want for stock 1.5-litre cars. It's not a Porshe 911

[Matra et Alpine]

thanks nota brought backl more memories...

IIRC Murray was actually winding up all the European drivers about the dangers of the 'roos when they arrived. THEN he was the first to hit one.
poetic justice

THe landcrabs weighed a TON and were pretty tough to start with. Not sure about budget, but if there WAS lots spent it certainly doesn't show in the car

"20 year" was a bit excessive But the Cortina chassis and rear end was pretty much the same as the previous generation Fords designed in the early 50s. It was the MacPherson strut front , new to Ford in the late 50s that was teh "innovation" that made the Cortina The Lotus Cortina was teh only one wiht a "decent" engine again the block for the others dating back a long way.