Rally Cars from Goodwood Member’s Meeting

Ahead of Bonhams Goodwood Members' Meeting auction on 16 April, Dan Prosser of The Intercooler gets behind the wheels of three rally cars with exceptional racing history—the 1963 Mini Cooper S, 1960 Austin-Healey 3000 Mk1 and 1999 Subaru Impreza WRC.

You would have had quite the surprise if you’d gone down to the woods that day. Maybe not when you saw three works rally cars at rest in the dappled sunlight, because rally cars belong in the woods, but any time the driver of the Subaru fired its flat-four engine and so much as brushed the right-most pedal with his smallest toe. The thunderclap that rang out through the woods whenever that car ran was loud enough to make every person, critter and even every tree in the vicinity leap out of their skin (or bark).

Once the shock had subsided, you would have wandered slowly around the three machines and realised that rally cars really do come in all shapes and sizes. Could any other trio better describe the variety in footprint, mechanical layout, engine configuration and power output across rallying equipment than these?  

The 1963 Mini Cooper S, 1960 Austin-Healey 3000 Mk1 and 1999 Subaru Impreza WRC, each one being offered for sale next week by Bonhams at the Goodwood Members’ Meeting, all come with fascinating backstories and iconic drivers attached to them. Briefly, the Mini was driven by Rauno Aaltonen on the most famous rally of them all, Rallye Monte Carlo, during that event’s heyday in 1964, the year BMC teammate Paddy Hopkirk won. Aaltonen eventually finished seventh overall.

Meanwhile, the Austin-Healey came first overall on the mighty Marathon de la Route in 1960 in the hands of Pat Moss, Stirling’s sister, with Ann Wisdom alongside in the navigator’s seat. Finally, the Impreza WRC99, driven by England’s only World Rally Champion, Richard Burns, to the calm and precise soundtrack of Scotsman Robert Reid on the pacenotes, contested Rallye Sanremo in 1999 and Rallye Monte Carlo in 2000, winning a special stage on the latter, proving its speed across the ground and the towering ability of the men in its charge. 

But their histories can be read in detail elsewhere. The job today is to drive each car and learn just a little about what Rauno Aaltonen, Pat Moss and Richard Burns would have seen, felt and heard while flinging their machines through the woods or over a snowy mountain pass quicker than anybody else.

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1963 Mini Cooper S

Aaltonen and co-driver Tony Ambrose covered more than 1500 miles in their tiny Cooper S en route to Monte Carlo, having started a long way to the north in Oslo. All that way in something so small seems like a feat of human endurance in itself, or at least it does until you sit in the thing. Inside you find comfortable seats, excellent visibility all round and a great deal more space than you thought possible. The dashboard is too far away to reach even with an arm outstretched – you feel about as cooped up in here as dove in a hangar.

The little A-series buzzes away like a wasp. The Mini gets going quite nicely but never feels seriously quick, so you instead accrue speed over time and then guard it jealously, only brushing the brake pedal when absolutely necessary. You use the flighty agility of a car so compact with a wheelbase so short to get it into bends without scrubbing away any of that precious speed. 

The steering, its wheel almost horizontal like a bus, is pin-sharp. Just a few degrees of lock sends the car darting in some other direction. On supple suspension and with so little weight to control, the Mini glides over bumps in the road beautifully. The meagre distance between its door handles makes even the narrowest hedgerow-lined country lane appear like a multilane highway ahead of you. The tightest corner is just a moderate bend; a sweeping turn essentially another straight. 

All of a sudden, you realise how the likes of Aaltonen and Hopkirk were able to fling these little troopers over those frosty Alpine roads at such great speed, their relative lack of power more than offset by how quickly they could zip through corners. No wonder these cars won the Monte three times.  

1960 Austin-Healey 3000 Mk1

The Austin-Healey feels totally different. You don’t sit upright and forward, but in repose, legs outstretched, the big upright steering wheel inches in front of your face. The view down the long bonnet is pure 1960s British sports car – you point the far end of the prow wherever you’d like to go. Rather than the vague, ponderous tiller you expect, you find accurate steering and precise response. The ride is fluid and composed, the brawny six-cylinder motor strong and willing. 

 It’s no wonder this car was so effective over long distances – it is the rally car rendered as a grand tourer. What fun it is to imagine Moss and Wisdom haring through the French or Italian countryside so much faster than the men, no doubt giggling between themselves as they went. You look to the seat to your left and wonder if Stirling ever sat there, smiling quietly to himself, proud of his little sister. 

1999 Subaru Impreza WRC

To an entire generation of rally enthusiasts, it gets no better than a two-door Subaru Impreza WRC in bright blue with gold wheels and lurid yellow star cluster decals. Sitting in its Sparco bucket seat, held in tightly by the harness, you find the steering wheel in your chest. The car drips with purpose and attitude – be tentative with it and you’ll be made to look foolish. Instead you must be deliberate, aggressive even, shoving the gearlever back and forth, hitting the brake pedal hard.

Squeeze the throttle pedal, however lightly, and the car rockets forward. There is no moment of deliberation, no pause as it fills its lungs, just instantaneous response and a violent surge headlong towards the horizon. The ratios are short so you shift up quickly, feeling the same charge along the road in the next ratio and the one after that, the violence of it barely fading as you climb through the gears. The steering is sharper still, fractional inputs causing the car to dart this way and that, the cabin always a cacophony of engine noise, transmission whine and thunks from the suspension.

To drive these cars is to finally understand how champions like Aaltonen, Moss and Burns were able to do what they did. In every case they were wonderfully talented, but we must not overlook the fact that they were driving rally cars with no small ability of their own.

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