Safari Rally III

SAFARI RALLY III

THE 1962 EVENT

For the 1962 event a team of five cars was entered by the Cooper Motor Corporation, the local VW agents and importers of VWs. The experience they had hard won from previous years was used to good effect when preparing the cars and choosing the crews.

The cars were to be driven by the following crews: -

John Manussis & Bill Coleridge

Tommy Fjastad & Bernhard Schmider

J F Banks & T F Bradley

Joginder Singh & Jaswant Singh

Gerd Elvers & L E Baillargeon

All were well versed in Safari conditions, Manussis being a past Safari winner.

PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT.

Preparations for the 1962 event had started in August 1961, when two technicians came over from the VW factory at Wolfsburg in Germany and carried out a 3000 mile test run trying various modifications.

The crews were sent off to do a reconnaissance of the route and make "pace notes" of difficult corners, poor bridges, obscure road junctions and river crossings. In all a total of 30,000 miles were covered by the crews in the months prior to the event, and page after page of notes taken.

Tommy Fjastad mounted these notes in a roller system fixed in a box, rather like two toilet rolls, so that as the route was followed the notes could be unrolled and read. This avoided having large amount's of loose paper in the car, and the roll was changed at the half way stage. Denis Jenkinson used a similar device when he navigated Stirling Moss to victory in the 1955 Mille Miglia .

The Safari conditions meant that the event demanded very different driving skills from, say, the Monte Carlo.

The drivers were instructed that if - due to the road conditions (deep mud floods, etc) - they could not get through individually, then they were to rope the cars together, bumper to bumper, in the form of a crocodile. They had discovered on the 1959 event that was the only way to make progress.

From the mass of notes a plan of action was drawn up. It was known that the Beetles would be out paced for speed on the northern loop of the rally and that the second half from Nairobi to Dar-es-Salam would have the deep mud, stones, ditches and general rough going that would better suit the Beetles.

The plan was to drive the first half at a speed that would keep the team in touch with the leading cars and leave the vehicles in a sound enough condition to mount an assault in the second half of the event through the notorious Umbulu section.

THE CARS

In 1961, the debut of the new 34bhp engine, all the VWs had experienced trouble with cracked gear selector housings on the new all syncromesh gearboxes allowing all the oil to leak out of the gear box resulting in retirement for most of the VWs. Jodinger Singh's car had its gearbox changed twice by the crew, but to no avail.

The trouble was found to be the bonded rubber mountings on the gearbox shearing, allowing the gear box to move excessively causing the casing to crack. This was the result of a change made by the factory in reducing the hardness of the mountings for 1960 onwards. So for the 1962 event the earlier, harder, mountings were fitted, these were also made available to customers as a factory option.

The cars for the 1962 event were 34bhp, 1192cc Beetles, with the new for 1960 all syncromesh gearbox. They were in fact 1961 model year cars, because the Safari took place over Easter and Volkswagen’s 1962 model production started in August.

The cars were specially prepared at Wolfsburg and were based on the cars produced for the German post office, but of course right-hand drive. This is why the cars were all painted in German Post Office grey (Anthracite Grey).

Although the cars had to be near standard mechanically (the East African Safari was only for production cars at this time), several modifications were made at the factory.

MODIFICATIONS MADE TO THE CARS AT WOLFSBURG

1/ Front axle reinforcement - extra supports were fitted from the axle to the frame.

2/ Harder gearbox mounts.

3/ Front skid plate /stone guard.

4/ Extra protection to front gear box mounting.

5/ Protection plates for the jacking points.

6/ Police Specification Electrical system.

7/ Extra engine bay seals

All these were Factory options that could be fitted to any customer’s car.

LOCAL MODIFICATIONS.

When the cars arrived in Nairobi other modifications were made to suit the local conditions. A white spot was painted on the bonnet so that in the event of an accident a hole could be cut in that spot to get at the petrol filler cap, and rubber clips were used to secure the bonnet and engine cover, instead of the standard catch.

The chrome trim in the drivers eye line was painted black to avoid glare, extra padding was added to the driver's seat and door, and the spotlights were mounted on the door hinges to keep them clear of the mud. The whole seat was covered in a cloth material, with pockets sewn in the back to take oddments and bottles of Lucosade glucose drink.

The passenger's seat was also made to recline so that the off-duty crewman could catch some sleep during the quieter moments of the route.

The rear seats were removed and a plywood tray fitted in its place holding spare parts, a panga (a sort of large knife) for chopping down the bush and a spade entrenching tool for digging the car out if it became bogged down.

The rear wings were fitted with 5mm wire rolled into the edges, this was to strengthen the wing and to stop the edges fraying from the impact of stones.

Stone guards were fitted to the headlights to protect the lenses and mud flaps added to keep down flying stones. A sump protection grid was under the engine.

The electrics were waterproofed, and special modifications made to allow the cars to wade through deep water. These included rubber hose extensions where one end was fitted over the exhaust tailpipes and the other end was arranged so that it could be clipped to the grille by the rear window.

This stopped water entering the exhaust when fording deep water and flooding the engine, and a hose was also provided to fit from the carburettor into the interior of the car so that dry air could be fed to the engine. This was to prove very useful later on.

MECHANICAL MODIFICATIONS.

The engines were stripped down, and the rotating parts balanced, the cylinder head ports were opened out and the camshaft changed, the exhaust was cut open and the pipe lengths inside the exhaust were equalised before welding the box back together.

The silencing linings were also removed from the tailpipes to give a better flow for the exhaust gasses, then, after very careful blueprinting and re-assembly the engines were "run-in" for some considerable mileage to get a smooth, free-running engine. This work resulted in a car that was a lot quicker than a standard 1192cc Beetle, 80mph being easily attainable (72mph for a standard car).

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