Ian Harwood Pt.3
In the third instalment of the Ian Harwood interview series on Backseat Driver, Ian and I delve into the most gruelling part of his rally journey: navigating the rugged landscapes of South America in a battered Mark II Cortina.
Ian shares vivid accounts of conquering Argentina’s challenging terrain, crossing the majestic yet perilous Andes, and enduring the unforgiving Atacama Desert.
From intense racing and mechanical setbacks to an unexpected and tense encounter with soldiers, Ian’s tales bring to life the resilience and determination required for such an adventure. The journey culminates in a bittersweet moment as delays force their exclusion from the rally near Lima.
Reflecting on his motorsport career, Ian speaks warmly about the rally community and the remarkable personalities he’s met along the way. This episode is a testament to the grit, camaraderie, and unforgettable experiences that make rallying a truly extraordinary pursuit.
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Transcript
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Speaker A: ge or call John and Alicia on: Speaker B:Yes, you are hearing this correctly.
Speaker B:This is Port 3 of the Ian hold interview.
Speaker B:We are now progressing up South America as best we can in, shall we say, a somewhat injured Mark 2 Cortina.
Speaker B:Ian, welcome back to the your third part of the backseat driver interview.
Speaker C:Right, well thank you again, Mahak.
Speaker C:Yes, right.
Speaker C:So we left the previous story where we'd had the car repaired and we're picking up the route again and we realized that we'd been delayed, of course.
Speaker C:So Barry Hughes, who was my co.
Speaker B:Driver, like a lot of the times they got to the stage where they had to be quite generous with lateness, haven't they?
Speaker C:Because they kept extending it, which was a good job.
Speaker B:Incredibly rough.
Speaker C:Yes, it was.
Speaker C:And fast.
Speaker C:I mean just very briefly, one of the stages that we had in, I think it was Argentina.
Speaker C:I remember a lot of discussion going on about this and this particular they were called preams, but they were like stages on public roads.
Speaker C:But of course there are no cars around really.
Speaker C:And this particular pream I'm mentioning now was 160 kilometers long, which of course is 100 miles.
Speaker B:It's a long way.
Speaker C:No, but the trouble was the bogey time was one hour, so you had to to be clean.
Speaker C:And ironically about four cars, I think.
Speaker C:Brian culture in that fabulous Triumph 2.5 PI, which is a one off machine, alloy panel, 300 brake horsepower, I'm told.
Speaker C:And a couple of the Porsches, they did clean that particular PR.
Speaker C:We dropped I think seven or eight minutes and somebody worked out that we had averaged 92 miles an hour.
Speaker C:But it was fifth gear all the way through, drifting on this wonderful smooth sort of gravel.
Speaker C:If you Like a main road.
Speaker C:Well, say smooth.
Speaker C:Not that smooth, but yeah, that was, it was tight.
Speaker C:So I think is the roads were all.
Speaker B:There were public roads.
Speaker C:That's right.
Speaker C:And you rarely saw a car.
Speaker C:And if you did see a lope come the other way, they would tend to pull over at an angle so that any spray and dust and shale wouldn't hit the windscreen.
Speaker C:You see these guys, they pull over at an angle and they put their hand on the windscreen to try and protect it.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:And I felt a little bit guilty sometimes but.
Speaker C:But you'd see people on, on horseback with their ponchos and there' up on the banks there, watching there.
Speaker C:Particularly if they knew was a pothole or a gully there that, that you'd hit.
Speaker C:And boy, we, we did some low flying on some of those, on some of those prems.
Speaker C:But as we left our garage repair plate, Barry Hughes, our navigator man, decided, well, we had to cut to keep back.
Speaker C:So we, we cut part of the roof that I was looking forward to.
Speaker C:It was going 16,000ft over the Andes from, from the west side of the Andes to the east side of the Andes.
Speaker B:Because some of the teams carried oxygen.
Speaker C:We were issued with oxygen, which they never used, which I was most frustrated about.
Speaker C:But you're right, we have the little oxygen cylinders there and I.
Speaker C:Cause I was interested in how the car was going to perform because there was a 50% power loss of power on some of the cars under test.
Speaker C:Anyway, we decide.
Speaker C:Barry decides, well, look, if we cut out this 16,000 pass, it's a passage control, we'll miss that and we'll rejoin the main time control which is about 250 miles further up.
Speaker C:So we push on as hard as we can really.
Speaker C:And we get to this time control and yes, we've got to fail because we missed this passage.
Speaker C:But we're still in the rally, that's the main thing.
Speaker C:And this passage Control or this Time Control, we pick up the route from.
Speaker C:It's just really at the beginning of the Atacama Desert.
Speaker C:Now the atacama Desert is 8,300ft high and it's 600 miles from south to north.
Speaker C:But we weren't doing the full length.
Speaker C:The rally wasn't doing the full length.
Speaker C:We were picking this thing up about 100 miles from its northern boundary.
Speaker C:So we had to leave this, this Time control with a clutch that was still.
Speaker C:We hadn't changed this bell housing yet.
Speaker C:I forgot to mention that we got this clutch which is getting a bit temperamental.
Speaker C:So I've got to climb 8,300ft to get onto the Atacama Desert.
Speaker C:And it's the so called Pan American highway.
Speaker C:But it's like a, it's like a, an abandoned gravel track really with boulders the size of 8 and 10 foot high.
Speaker C:These big boulders have been, you know, dropped off as and when it was being formed.
Speaker C:And I remember thinking that the previous year man had landed on the moon.
Speaker C:America had all these photographs around the world of man landing on the moon.
Speaker C:And I sort of half joked with my crew, I said, you know, I said this resembles the moon surface.
Speaker C:I wonder if America did get into the moon.
Speaker C:You know, they had there for a few days was a handy photo shot.
Speaker C:But we're on there for about 100 miles.
Speaker C:The clutch is getting a bit dodgy I'm afraid because we're climbing slightly and I was trying to minimize the gear changing and again not full throttle out of bends and so on.
Speaker C:And we can eventually see on the horizon the end of the desert really this flat, flat desert, no vegetation, nothing, just boulders.
Speaker C:And this so called Pan American highway wasn't straight, it was weaving between these boulders.
Speaker C:So you could never really be sure what was coming up till last minute really.
Speaker C:And the clutch is getting worse and worse.
Speaker C:And I'm to the point really where I'm thinking we're going to just have to sort of freewheel to a halt soon.
Speaker C:And as good fortune habit, the climb that we've been doing for the last 80 miles or so, it leveled out.
Speaker C:And I was aware of this.
Speaker C:I suddenly realized that the clutch was coping a bit better.
Speaker C:And then we had a very gradual downhill slope as we came off the Atacama Desert.
Speaker C:And that was all right, that was okay.
Speaker C:The clutch was able to cope with this.
Speaker C:In the distance we could see the, some little village or something ahead of us and there was a building, I could see a biggish building there.
Speaker C:So we're freewheeling almost down this hill and we come off the Atacama Desert onto a normal type road which unfortunately has a slight uphill gradient.
Speaker C:And this is where we get into trouble.
Speaker C:Our clutch just couldn't cope with this.
Speaker C:And I'm down to about 30 miles an hour, third gear, wooling this car on its way and we have to stop and we stop outside the building I had seen some miles previously.
Speaker C:It was a, a building with about a 10 foot wall going around it and we wonder what the devil this thing was.
Speaker C:But we parked up and we're in the car just having a quick think well we've got this bell housing to change.
Speaker C:We got the clutch with us, with me carrying a spare clutch.
Speaker C:Anyway, we had the bell housing which Stuart Turner delivered to the hotel.
Speaker C:We have to sort of get the car jacked up and all of a sudden the doors burst open and about a dozen soldiers come rushing out with their rifles and they sort of form a circle around the car pointing these rifles at us and beckon us to get out of a car, which we didn't argue about of course.
Speaker C:And we got out and these guys are all nudging us and there's a guy that had a couple of stripes on his shoulder.
Speaker C:So I beckoned to him to come to the back of the car and I showed him the GB badge, which didn't mean a thing of course.
Speaker C:So I then showed him the door stickers there, London, Mexico.
Speaker C:And he said something to these soldiers and they backed off a wee bit and they were intrigued as to why the steering wheel was on the right hand side of the car.
Speaker C:Apparently, you know, they, they hadn't seen from what I gathered, a car, right hand drive.
Speaker C:So as we're there, about five minutes or ten minutes were there this little jeep come bobbing down the road and goes past us and then does about a 10 point turn, comes back up to where we are.
Speaker C:And he's an English guy, Ah, he says, can I help you?
Speaker C:Well he came from Whitchurch where Frank Pearson's garage was and he was a geologist studying earthquakes.
Speaker C:And he said, we explained what had happened.
Speaker C:Well he said, look, he said I can, I can tell you to a garage man I know in the town said.
Speaker C:So he shoots off to check that he can take us there and we can use his ramp and so on.
Speaker C:So yep, he comes back and he tows us half a mile to this little garage.
Speaker C:Well it's like a Dutch barn really.
Speaker C:It's just got a four posts and a roof, but it had a ramp.
Speaker C:So we pull up as near as we can to this ramp and then this guy said, look, he said I've got to go.
Speaker C:He said I'm meeting up with some team members doing some checking of earthquakes.
Speaker C:So he said I'll leave you if you don't mind.
Speaker C:So he gave us a hand to push the car on the ramp.
Speaker C:So we unload the bell housing and the clutch and things all tied down and Frank Pearson and I, we get to this ramp and we're walking around this ramp.
Speaker C:Well, where the heck's the power point to it?
Speaker C:And all of a sudden we Realize that on the opposite corner post there's a crank handle.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:So it was a hand cracked ramp.
Speaker C:My God.
Speaker C:It hadn't been used for a long time.
Speaker C:I don't think it was dry.
Speaker C:Creaked but we spent probably 20 minutes, no, perhaps not 20 minutes, but quarter of an hour or so getting this car about 3 foot 6 up in the air so we could climb underneath it to drop the bell housing and gearbox and things.
Speaker C:And of course Barry Hughes is there.
Speaker C:Look, he said we've got to get to Lima.
Speaker C:It's 100 odd miles away.
Speaker C:You got about an hour and a half, he said.
Speaker C:So you can only, you know, you can only sort of take 20 minutes on this clutch change.
Speaker C:Right, okay, Barry.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:Okay.
Speaker C:So Frank and I dive under the car.
Speaker C:We get the bell housing prop shaft off.
Speaker C:I change the bell housing over to the gearbox while Frank puts the new clutch plates and things in.
Speaker C:We put it back on again there.
Speaker C:We check the clutch, adjust the clutch, bleed the clutch fine.
Speaker C:Okay.
Speaker C:We go to let the ramp down and this thing's creaking and groaning and it gets a bit out of line, out of plumb and it wedges and we're still about 3 foot off the ground.
Speaker C:So we're trying to get it back up again.
Speaker C:One corners down a bit.
Speaker C:No, it wouldn't go up, it wouldn't go down.
Speaker C:We're weds were stuck.
Speaker C:Barry started to do a bit of a war dance because we're taking far too long on this.
Speaker C:So there's a, another building alongside us and I'd spotted some lengths of timber which looked a bit green, bit rotten maybe, but were shot over there and they were roughly in English money, there would be about 6 inches by 2 inches and about 10 foot long.
Speaker C:So as I went down through this timber, we got to the better looking timber, looked all right.
Speaker C:So Frank and I took six of these pieces, three on each ramp.
Speaker C:And I'm elected, of course, I'm driver.
Speaker C:So I'm elected to take this car off the ramp, down this timber.
Speaker C:I get to the two foot onto this timber and it starts creaking and groaning.
Speaker C:We think, no, it's, it's not going to take the whole weight of the car.
Speaker C:So we go back up on the ramp and there's some old drums, oil drums and things.
Speaker C:They're 40 gallon oil drums, which some of them are full of whatever waste oil.
Speaker C:But there's a couple we find that are empty.
Speaker C:So we wheel these over, stick them under the timbers and we have another go reversing down and, yeah, that's all right.
Speaker C:I was just glad that we didn't have an exhaust under the car because the angle we came down and exhaust would certainly have dug into the ground first.
Speaker C:So we get it off.
Speaker C:So we, we quickly get away.
Speaker C:We put the timbers back where they were.
Speaker C:We're sorry, but the ramps left as it is, we've got nobody to speak to.
Speaker C:So off we go and we have to get up to Lima.
Speaker C:So the first part of the journey.
Speaker C:Okay, I can boot up there pretty well.
Speaker C:The roads have pretty quiet still.
Speaker C:I think it's.
Speaker C:I think it was a Saturday.
Speaker C:I see.
Speaker C:To remember being told afterwards.
Speaker C:And as we're approaching Lima, which of course is the capital city of Peru, and like all cities, it's a.
Speaker C:It gets a bit busy probably we start getting traffic around us, which is not good news because B's giving us the countdown, you know, we've got half an hour, we've got sort of 18 miles to go and blah, blah, blah.
Speaker C:So we're gradually getting into the surrounding areas, if you like.
Speaker C:And we're getting into traffic which I can't just keep whistling past these people.
Speaker C:It's not going to be taken too well.
Speaker C:And we're passing these vehicles one by one and all of a sudden I realize about 100 yards ahead there's a convoy of army lorries and nobody is overtaking this convoy of army lock.
Speaker C:Must be a dozen trucks, I'd have thought, full of soldiers.
Speaker C:And we wondered if they came from that camp that we'd actually stopped at when the clutch expired.
Speaker C:So we get up to two cars behind this truck and these army soldiers are all pointing to us there and I'm starting to nose out there and they're doing.
Speaker C:Waving the hands.
Speaker C:No, no, no.
Speaker C:So I can't dosh about this, really, Barry saying, well, look, you've got five minutes now before we're over maximum time control.
Speaker C:The main time controls just up the road, so to speak.
Speaker C:But we can't do a thing about this.
Speaker C:And of course the traffic's getting heavy as we're into the city center.
Speaker C:So the long and short of this is that we arrive at this hotel, we put our cards in and I think we were 15 or 18 minutes over our maximum lateness and we were excluded.
Speaker C:It was a main time control and we were out.
Speaker C:It was a shame because the car was going beautifully.
Speaker C:Then we changed the clutch, got all the brakes working and the car was running well.
Speaker C:But no, we were not allowed.
Speaker C:Did you go, did you make your.
Speaker B:Way to the End because quite a few of the cars that went out.
Speaker C:Some of the crews went.
Speaker C:No, we didn't actually.
Speaker C:We realized we'd done.
Speaker C:I think we'd done about 13,000 miles off the 15 or 16.
Speaker C:That was the route and we didn't.
Speaker C:But the organizers had got facilities because there were ships going from Lima.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:To Liverpool, which is very convenient.
Speaker C:So the organizers.
Speaker B:That's a sign you'd expect to see.
Speaker C:That's right.
Speaker B:So is rumble sul Liverpool from here.
Speaker C:Yeah, that's it.
Speaker C:So the organizer had got these.
Speaker C:This shipping firm organized that if the cars had to come back to the UK or Europe, in fact, you know, that they would be able to use this facility.
Speaker C:So that was done.
Speaker C:We were then left then where we were able to catch up with our families because we hadn't been in touch with them.
Speaker C:And of course you had to book a phone call for three hours ahead and so on.
Speaker C:So the next day we got the car organized and parked up in a.
Speaker C:In a compound.
Speaker C:And the organizers would take the car to the shipping as and when the boat was ready to be loaded.
Speaker C:Could have been two or three weeks ahead.
Speaker C:So we get a BOAC as it was then.
Speaker C:Flight booked from through the organizers.
Speaker C:They were very good.
Speaker C:They got all these things covered.
Speaker C:We booked this flight from Lima to New York, jfk.
Speaker C:So we're there at the airport.
Speaker C:There's our three of us, our crew and two guys, business guys from New York.
Speaker C:And we are the passengers for this flight, this BOAC flight, which is going via Montego Bay and then Kingston on Jamaica and then up to jfk.
Speaker C:And one of the crew who we'd met the night before at the hotel, he's looking us.
Speaker C:I'm sorry, chaps.
Speaker C:He said, we're going to be at an hour late leaving.
Speaker C:He said, we've got a problem with our weather radar.
Speaker C:It's not working, and we've got a fair bit of turbulence ahead.
Speaker C:Just what I wanted to hear, I must admit.
Speaker C:But there we go.
Speaker C:So eventually we get the.
Speaker C:Okay, so the five of us, the three of us are crew and these two American guys, we get on this plane and we take off.
Speaker C:And yes, we have a pretty rough flight.
Speaker C:When I think back about this, and I remember going over the Panama Canal, seeing this little bit of string also the pilot said that, you know, beneath there's a Panama Canal, which I looked at and quite pleased to see where we were on the map, really.
Speaker C:So we're landing at Montego Bay, very windy, and the trees at the side of the Runway some distance away.
Speaker C:They're touching the ground almost really in this plane.
Speaker C:We land about three time.
Speaker C:Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
Speaker C:And there's five of us and we're told to stay on the plane because we won't be there too long.
Speaker C:And about 20 local Jamaicans get on the plane all dressed up in the carnival dress.
Speaker C:They're going to some carnival up in, in Kingston.
Speaker C:So they've got their guitars, their drums and whatnot there.
Speaker C:So we've got all this music going on while we're sort of at the end of the Runway that the blend this music, which is very nice.
Speaker C:And then we're told to table.
Speaker C:Take off.
Speaker C:So again, it's a rough old takeoff thing really.
Speaker C:And these guys, these Jamaicans, they don't have, you know, they, they went green.
Speaker C:Oh my.
Speaker C:Big, really poor people.
Speaker C:Girls and boys, you know, they were.
Speaker C:There were mixed groups there.
Speaker C:Anyway, we land and they offload and then we fly to jfk.
Speaker C:But of course we missed our connection.
Speaker C:So we have to spend about 3, 4 hours at JFK.
Speaker C:And whilst we're there, there's like television screens around and there's news coming through from South America of a big earthquake.
Speaker C:And we're showing some interest in this, of course, having been there and what it was was a town, Antofagaster, Antof Augusta, which was rally route and it had been decimated by an earthquake.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:And of course we had met this geologist who was doing surveys on these seismometers or whatever they're called, because they were anticipating some sort of earthquake because of the movement they were picking up, which is why he had to sort of drop us off quickly and get down to meeting his team.
Speaker C:And we were at the airport and we eventually got another flight out down to Heathrow rather than Manchester.
Speaker C:But when we landed at Manchester, of course the world was full of this news that there have been multiple casualties.
Speaker C:And in fact, after a few days it transpired that 10,000 people lost their lives in Antarcaster whilst, you know, whilst we had just been in the area.
Speaker C:And fortunately the rally had gone through about 12, 24 hours beforehand.
Speaker C:So there's no involvement with the crews, which was good.
Speaker C:But that was really the end of our rally, really.
Speaker B:I mean, even though you didn't finish.
Speaker C:Unfortunately, it must have been one hell.
Speaker B:Of a thing to have taken port.
Speaker C:Yes, I mean, I think of it from time to time now.
Speaker C:And at one stage when the car was going well in, in.
Speaker C:In South America, I.
Speaker C:I read the reports when we were back home there, we were actually lying 13th.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:In.
Speaker C:I think it was in Argentina.
Speaker C:And the Works Escorts, of course, were in the top seven, really, plus Brian Kolchuth and so on.
Speaker C:But Ford were quite pleased.
Speaker C:And the fact.
Speaker C:One of the big posters I have when I'm doing these talks, there's a photograph of our car being slung on board the ship at Lisbon on its way to Rio, because Fords were quite sure we were going to win the class, the over 2 liter class, which is what was in their plan.
Speaker C:When they gave us this 2.6 engine, they thought, well, it spreads the class categories a wee bit and of course it was a great shame and.
Speaker C:And that was it.
Speaker C:But yes, there's a lot of talk and I gave.
Speaker C:I still do different things now with round tables and motor clubs and so on, but yes, tremendous event.
Speaker C:And what happened to the car?
Speaker C:Well, that was very sad in a way.
Speaker C:Cal sold the car.
Speaker C:Carl Withers, he sold the car.
Speaker C:And when we did the 40th anniversary of this, there's a big anniversary thing at Gaydon, the Gaydon Motor Museum, and Cal Wither, the only thing he had left of that car was the steering wheel.
Speaker C:So we presented the photographs and posters and Carl with this sort of had the steering wheel on display.
Speaker C:I mean, it's one of those strange things.
Speaker B:Ex Works rally cars back then were meaningless things.
Speaker B:They come to the end of their life, taken in bits and do whatever.
Speaker C:Now they were a small fortune.
Speaker C:If we got the car now, it's like the World cup cars, I mean, they're just, they're.
Speaker C:There's just unlimited value on the Ford Escorts.
Speaker C:That one, the rally were the top five.
Speaker B: for an ordinary Ford RS: Speaker B:Nothing in it.
Speaker C:That's right.
Speaker B:What a rot.
Speaker C:And if it's got a bit of history or a bit of, I suppose, nostalgia really, but yes, it was a great event and.
Speaker C:And there's been nothing since quite that length.
Speaker C:16,000 miles.
Speaker C:The London, the Sydney, which I so envied, the cruise doing about, was a.
Speaker C:A mere 12,000 miles.
Speaker C:And in fact, the Cortina that we use, the ex Rosie Smith car on the speedometer, it was 12,300 and something miles one way, the other.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:When.
Speaker B:When did you stop rallying?
Speaker B:I don't think you'll mind me saying that.
Speaker B:You're now in your 80s, young man.
Speaker C:That's right.
Speaker C: Well,: Speaker C: So I rallied until: Speaker C: And my rally day stopped in: Speaker C:Yeah, and interesting.
Speaker C:I mean I, I built my first proper rally car.
Speaker C:I, the family grown up a wee bit then and I, I bought a very modified Rover V8 engine, dry sumped and so on, which Janspeed, who are big exhaust people, they prepared and built and fitted for me and we went out rallying with this V8 engine because I couldn't afford these BDG or BDAs in 2.2 and 2.4 liter form.
Speaker C:They were costing a fortune.
Speaker C:So this V8 was a cheap way.
Speaker C:I say cheap, it was cheaper than the Ford engines.
Speaker B:It'd be like the cheap way of getting the same horsepower.
Speaker C:Yes, well, that's right.
Speaker C:I had about 240 brake horsepower, according to one of the firms that sponsored me and who put this thing on the rolling road.
Speaker C:And in fact I did the Sobtrda Gold Star series, which was quite a.
Speaker C:Well, it was quite a well sponsored event really.
Speaker C:And fortunately we, we actually led this event after about four rallies because the car never failed to Finish.
Speaker C:Yeah, the BDGs were doing three and four events, then had to have an engine rebuild.
Speaker B:I mean, technically a Rover V8 is not an overly stressed engine.
Speaker C:No, this was a beautiful engine.
Speaker C:Say it was all dry sumped, American camshaft, a big four barrel Holley carburettor.
Speaker C:But I didn't want the car to look different.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:And I just, I had to have two exhausts.
Speaker C:But I said to Janspeed, don't make them too obvious, really.
Speaker C:So, yeah, they put a normal 2 Pinto exhaust on the right hand side.
Speaker C:The left hand side.
Speaker C:So apart from the extra tailpipe, there's no giveaways.
Speaker C:Apart from the burbl of course.
Speaker C:You know, the noise.
Speaker C:Oh, well, the spectators, I mean they would come after the rally or after at a halfway halt, they say, oh, your V8.
Speaker C:Such a different noise to these, to these BDGs.
Speaker C:And it's a lovely engine to hear.
Speaker B:What was it?
Speaker B:What, what's a V8 escort like to drive?
Speaker C:Well, the strange thing is I spent a bit of time measuring up these row of V8 engines and they fitted in the engine bay beautifully.
Speaker C:And of course, with being all alloy, alloy block, alloy head, it was 10 pounds heavier than the twin cam engine.
Speaker B:I was just going to say, technically as an alloy engine, it wouldn't weigh that much.
Speaker B:The four cylinder, that's been it.
Speaker C: an the Pinto engine for the RS: Speaker C:So the handling was really a dream.
Speaker C:I mean my, my problem was really I couldn't afford to go.
Speaker C:Vented discs.
Speaker C:These were the latest rally mod.
Speaker C:The works cars had vented discs all round, really front and rear fork popped calipers.
Speaker C:I was running with the solid discs, two pot calipers.
Speaker C:And I'm afraid I never, never really had the stopping power that I wanted.
Speaker C:I learned a technique of stopping where I dipped the clutch so I wasn't stopping the engine rotating and the big heavy fly with a clutch.
Speaker C:So that did help the braking system.
Speaker C:But I mean, whenever I stopped the end of stages, I had glowing red discs and things and fire.
Speaker C:Fire masters coming up with ready with a fire extinguish.
Speaker C:I had to restrain them from doing anything.
Speaker C: But that was: Speaker C:We were leading the championship.
Speaker C:I'm afraid.
Speaker C:I had my first big off running number one.
Speaker C:It's a privilege, I know, but it doesn't really always help the drivers because you're the guy that finds out anything that's perhaps a bit unusual.
Speaker B:And a bit of stage cleaning and.
Speaker C:A bit of stage cleaning on this particular stage, about the fourth stage of this particular rally down in Hampshire and it was a fast, fast approach and we're well into top gear and I could see this arrow on a tree that was at 45 degrees right.
Speaker C:And I'm looking ahead and I see the tree line is also telling me it's 45 degrees right.
Speaker C:And of course there's hundreds of spectators along these things there.
Speaker C:And as I'm about probably, I don't know what, 30 yards or so away, I realize there's a not a lot of people each side of this Bailey bridge.
Speaker C:Now, these Bailey bridges are wonderful things, but they can cause a lot of problems.
Speaker C:And what happened on this particular Bailey bridge was when I approached the Bailey bridge, it was like a launch pad because the Bailey bridge was level, whereas the road was going down.
Speaker C:You know, when we came off the Bailey bridge, we were airborne.
Speaker C:And we were airborne for about 60, 70ft.
Speaker C:And this right hand arrow that I was being told about and I was observing there what they were really telling Me, they wanted me to go right at a fork.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:And I didn't know it was a fork, of course.
Speaker C:And what happened is we landed in between the left hand, right hand road on stacks of pit props.
Speaker C:Alvi went.
Speaker C:We were those head over heels, I'm told, four or five times.
Speaker C:And we went from here to zero at about 50 yards or so.
Speaker C:And that was the end of my rallying, I'm afraid.
Speaker C:But I did go out leading the championship.
Speaker C:We had put two fastest times up, which I didn't know about, but.
Speaker C:Okay, if you're gonna go out, Will, you may as well go out while you're perhaps doing your.
Speaker C:What you capable of doing.
Speaker C:So that was my end of my rallying.
Speaker C: , no,: Speaker C:I finished the.
Speaker B:Do you miss it?
Speaker C:I do.
Speaker C:And I have a lot of customers, actually, who are quite good friends now.
Speaker C:I was very lucky.
Speaker C:We met a lot of people, in fact, what would be 19, mid-70s, probably.
Speaker C:I was just getting established with the G business.
Speaker C:And one of the guys I had, he'd rang up, he said, ian, he said, he said, I'm doing the tour of Cumbria at the weekend.
Speaker C:He said I could do the couple SP44s.
Speaker C:Have you got it?
Speaker C:Yes, I said, yeah, okay, well, look, he said, I'm working till 6 o'clock.
Speaker C:He said, I won't get to you till 8 o'clock.
Speaker C:He said, do I meet you at the garage or could you take them home?
Speaker C:Oh, I said, I'll take them home.
Speaker C:Okay.
Speaker C:So I gave him my address and so on.
Speaker C:So he arrived at 8 o'clock, this young guy in a Ford Anglia van, black overalls, black hands, black face, picks of his tires.
Speaker C:Thanks me very much indeed.
Speaker C:Off he goes next year, Ian, he said, I had some tires off you last year, the Tour of Cumbia.
Speaker C:He said, I'd like a diff if you got a.
Speaker C:A 4.4 diff and pass a couple of half shafts.
Speaker C:Yeah, okay.
Speaker C:I said, okay, so can I do what I did last year?
Speaker C:He said, I'll come down and.
Speaker C:Yep, okay.
Speaker C:So he comes down, same van, angley van, and he takes the tires, the diff.
Speaker C:I'm sorry, he takes the diff.
Speaker C:He said, look, he said, I can't afford the two half shafts.
Speaker C:I'll just take the diff.
Speaker C:So off he goes.
Speaker C:And I read Emotion News that this young chap from Cumbria wins the Tour of Cumbria.
Speaker C:It's none other than Malcolm Wilson, who I see in his Very early days.
Speaker C:And to think that he's done what he's done with his life, you know, it makes me think what a failure I have been.
Speaker C:So Malcolm Wills was one of my first customers and in fact I saw him at the racing car show about 20 years ago, I suppose later, and he was on the Ford stand and he spotted me and I spotted him, so we had a chat and I said to him, malcolm, I said, I've still got two half shafts in my garage at home.
Speaker B:Are you going to come and pick me up?
Speaker B:Yeah, no people for you.
Speaker C:So we had a good laugh about that.
Speaker C:But I'm a great admirer of what he's done and one of the other guys that we had who came to my house, I was sponsoring a guy in North Wales on the Welsh Rally Championship and his navigator was at Liverpool University studying accountancy and he was going to pick up a batch of ordinary survey maps which had been dropped off at my house.
Speaker C:So I was told that this young student will be picking up these maps on his way home and then doing the rally with my driver, Ian Hughes over the weekend.
Speaker C:So this young gangly chap with a beard, about 6 foot tall, with a ninny van parked at the bottom of the driveway comes up.
Speaker C:Oh, he said, Mr.
Speaker C:Harwood.
Speaker C:Well, I mean, nobody called me Mr.
Speaker C:Harwood.
Speaker C:Even the bank manager called me Ian Mr.
Speaker C:Harwood.
Speaker C:He said, I've come to pick up the maps.
Speaker C:He said, I'm David Richards.
Speaker C:Well, of course, David Richards of course now is the MSA chairman.
Speaker C:He's.
Speaker C:I think he'll have a gong before he's going much further.
Speaker C:So another guy that I've watched sort of from club level to when he started navigating Rothmans and Arivatinen.
Speaker C:And so it's nice to see these people and a lot of other customers that we've been in touch with and I see them doing well.
Speaker C:And in fact, the latter years of my business, it was the sons of my original customers.
Speaker C:I was there 35 years, yeah, until I retired and I had their sons coming to the dad said, I must go and see you.
Speaker C:And I found who the dad was and I remember dad.
Speaker C:And so, yeah, and we had a few, we had a few cars that were quite sort of well known cars.
Speaker C:One of the cars I bought in the mid-70s I was offered and it was an X Works Ford.
Speaker C:You wouldn't buy them now really.
Speaker C:It was Xoo253.4F, one of the first batch of Escort twin cams.
Speaker C:And I bought this Less engine and box.
Speaker C: R: Speaker C: So I've got this Rs: Speaker C:I'm walking around this car, this registration number, I like registration numbers and it was pvx which is lots of the works cars with vx, it's an Essex number.
Speaker C:So I'm looking around this car and yeah, it looks very nice.
Speaker C:And I spotted that the wipers were all wrong side.
Speaker C:It had been a left hand drive car converted to right hand driver.
Speaker C:The wiper box was the same side.
Speaker C:So I'm looking at this, I look at the chassis number and lock book, it all ties in.
Speaker C:All right, so I buy this car, I drive it and it drives beautifully.
Speaker C: R: Speaker C: I mean L, there were no R: Speaker C:So mine was 361L and the car that Autosport Auto Moto Motor, I think it was their car that the road tested was PVX362L, next car on the batch, which is why it was left hand drive of course, because it was experimental car introduced into the British market.
Speaker C:So these cars kept popping up and I could come over ages, I learned.
Speaker B:To say we've got to finish Pierre 3 here, Ian harbor, because as you could probably work out, we could have gone on probably for, yeah, few more hours.
Speaker B:But Ian Orwood, thank you very much indeed for joining me on the back seat.
Speaker C:Well, thank you Mark.
Speaker C:I've enjoyed talking to you and reliving these memories again.
Speaker C:Many thanks.
