Apart from Sauber and Williams in F1, motorsports teams typically show up prepared for anything. Rally teams, especially so, given their cars take such a beating. Back in the 1976 Scottish Rally, though, Ari Vatanen found himself with a broken car and no appropriate spares on hand. In true rally spirit, however, the team found a creative way to get the car back in the running.
Rallying was different back in the 1970s. The cars weren’t all specialist race builds from the ground up, and were instead very much still based on real road cars. This extended to a commonality in parts to some degree, which would prove crucial for Vatanen on that storied weekend.
The trouble started when Vatanen’s Escort saw its differential fail while he was leading the rally. He was able to limp the car downhill to the end of the course but had no way to continue. “It’s a component which has never broken before on a British rally, so we don’t carry them as spares,” explained co-driver Peter Bryant. We next see a desperate mechanic sprint in chase of a solution. “The caps broke on the middle of the diff, it’s let the bearing go and it’s fucked the pinion up, and the crown wheel,” he says. “Don’t know anyone who’s got one, do you?”
With spares nowhere to be found, Bryant came up with an altogether cheekier solution. “We’ll find a parked car and ask the owner if we can take the axle out of it!” he says.
Cameras captured the hunt. Thankfully, Bryant was able to quickly flag down a passing Ford Capri with the 3-liter engine. The owner, Ken Brown of Nottingham, was a good sport and pulled over with a smile on his face, letting the Ford crew pull his car apart for the good of the competition. Vatanen explained to an amused Brown that his was the first 3.0-liter Capri they’d seen pass by – even having enlisted the rally’s helicopter for help.
It was by no means an easy fix, as the team was under immense time pressure due to the rally’s service rules. A full swap including the diff housing was out of the question; instead, the diff’s components were pulled from the road-going Capri and slapped into the waiting rally car’s housing. The footage shows frantic scenes as the team wrestles with spanners and bearings on the bare ground before dumping a jerry can’s worth of fuel into the tank to get the car back on the road.
The differential wasn’t the same ratio as the race car’s, but it was enough to get the car back in the fight. As Vatanen and Bryant roared away with the Escort’s engine wailing a beautiful tune, Ford Competition Manager Peter Ashcroft encouraged Brown to have the local Ford dealer replace his Capri’s differential and send the bill to the team.
The events were chronicled in a film called Scotch and Dry, sponsored by Esso and now stored in the National Library of Scotland. We don’t know what happened to Brown and his Ford Capri, but one suspects the rally team made good on their promise to cover the repairs. As for Vatanen and the race, he sadly had to retire when transmission issues sidelined the car. Vatanen came back to win it the following year.
It’s a fun story that could never happen today. Modern WRC cars are bespoke beasts with few if any parts shared with their roadgoing brethren, and a certain magic has been lost from the days when factory motorsports machines weren’t so far from their production-car counterparts. It was an era like that we are unlikely to ever see again.
Image credits: via YouTube screenshot
While not at the WRC level this is still happening with grass roots level teams. These guys borrowed a diff from a forester that someone drove to the rally for a day.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MB5_8WaThZY&ab_channel=WideOpenRallysport
Late at night we used to watch the “Audi quattro Rally Gearbox change”
Basically, the crew changes an Audi transmission in 6 minutes in the street in Jordan in 1987. I think the driver went in to a cafe for a bio break. As it was a Rothman’s car, at the end a bunch of the crew smoke cigarettes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eOWYXR_yHU
More info at https://bangshift.com/bangshiftapex/epic-thrash-video-watch-audi-rally-team-change-transmission-six-minutes/
Capri to the rescue! I love it.
If you want to watch a doc with lots of Ari Vatanen, check out “Rallying – The Killer Years” on Amazon Prime. It is covers why Group B was so dangerous for drivers and spectators.
Just watched it – very interesting documentary, and Vatanen in particular was an interesting guy to hear from. Thanks for that!
Not to be a total jerk… but the differential in your leading photo is a ring and pinion.
Seems that they needed a ring and pinion (aka crown gear and pinion) too.
From the article:
“The caps broke on the middle of the diff, it’s let the bearing go and it’s fucked the pinion up, and the crown wheel,” he says. “Don’t know anyone who’s got one, do you?”
Many years ago I was working a SCCA race at Charlotte Motor Speedway when a driver with a VW GTI (~ 1985) pitted with electrical issues. It was some sort of electrical module (can’t remember now) but he saw my new 1985 GTI nearby and asked if he could borrow whatever had died on his car – Sure, no problem! It fixed whatever was wrong with the car and back to the race he went. After the race he found me and reinstalled the part on my GTI.
I love WRC but your closing paragraph is what’s wrong with racing today; it should be VERY production based. Like, buy a car, gut the interior panels, install a roll cage, and throw on some springs and tires and hit it. Imagine NASCAR or WRC like this. It would be glorious and it would actually prove who’s production cars actually DROVE great.
I would love to see this. I think there’s room for this and the bespoke cars we have racing today, which are often the cutting edge of technology that can trickle down to the mass market.
At some (most?) ARA events, there are situations where a team will need to “borrow” parts from a civilian or spectator car. It’s pretty awesome to behold.
This is cool as hell and everybody involved is a damn hero and you’ll have a tough time publishing anything else I’m this happy about today. Thanks team!
While not on the same level of WRC, I have a similar story.
I’ve been racing in the 24 Hours of Lemons on and off since 2007. My first two ventures in the series were with another team racing a pair of Saab 900s. In one of the races, our team was sponsored by a Saab specialist mechanic who actually came to the race, driving his own personal Saab 900. Long story short, one of the race cars had a significant engine failure, and the mechanic decided to pull the engine from his own car and put it in the race car at the track. His car ended up being a source for a few other parts, to the point where it was clear we couldn’t get his street car back together, so at the end of the race he stripped it for most usable parts and left it at the track.
And that is why Lemons now has a rule that you must take all your own crap back home with you, heh.
This was actually documented on the German lighting site back when my buddy Murilee Martin was writing for them.
https://jalopnik.com/saabs-gone-wild-at-the-24-hours-of-lemons-320259
Whoa LTDScott, haven’t heard that name in a while. Hmm, I wonder if $kaycog is lurking around here.
I still occasionally think of $kaycog—she’s definitely one of the ones I miss
I feel like if you were a fan this would be your dream. To be part of the action, part of the solution.
And you could definitely brag to your friends that your car uses the same parts as the rally car!
At a Canadian Rally Championship race this year we were sitting at a corner where a team broke down and they determined they were done for the weekend. They came and sat up in the hills with us and we were able to provide beverages and snacks. Not quite a differential but still felt good to help