Safari Rally VI

SAFARI RALLY VI

FJASTAD TRYS A FORD

This then brings us to 1964, where Tommy Fjastad comes back into the picture. Tommy was very keen to do the '64 event and had been promised a drive in a Ford Lincoln-Mercury Comet, a big, heavy, powerful, bright red painted American Sedan. The Comet’s power was to prove useful to Tommy later on in this story, but for the moment, after a practice session on the northern half of the route, where Tommy is alleged to have bent all the cars shock absorbers, he found himself out of the team with only one day left before the official close of entries. Most people would have given up, but Safari drivers are made of sterner stuff, - but where to get a suitable car at such very short notice?

Tommy dashed round to The Cooper Motor Corporation, had they, he said, still got his old Safari winning car KHD 302? Yes they had, Tommy asked to buy the car as it stood which was, you remember, as a workshop hack. A deal was entered into. Tommy paid £300 for the two-year old car, now with 24,000 miles on the clock, and drove it back home where he set to and made the car ready for its second Safari outing. In fact he only had to spend another £50 on the car to get it up to scratch.

So a few days later the old car- now wearing the number 93, stood at the start of it's second Safari, three other VWs were among the 94 starters they were driven by R B Carlisle & J Paton at No 90, Nirmal Singh Bachu & Pyara Singh Bachu at No 97 and F S Sababady & R Vernon at No 98.

In 1962 the starting order had been determined by engine capacity with the smallest starting first. However for 1964 starting was by ballot, with the lower start numbers having a distinct advantage. Tommy knew, when he saw his high start number, there was little chance of repeating his 1962 win, and concentrated on getting what was probably the oldest and highest mileage car in the event to the finish.

(All the prizes are at the finish! - Roger Clark)

SECOND TIME ROUND.

Tommy says that event was reasonably straight forward, at least for the first half. Rear-engined traction took them through the worst of the mud. So well did they go that after Tinderet they passed no less than eight cars that had bogged down, later on through the wet Umbulu section, although they lost time, they also passed nine more cars including two Comets! The first major problem they had was about 70 miles outside Dar-es-Salaam when two locals threw stones at the passing cars. They must have improved their aim with the passage of almost 80 Rally cars because they hit and shattered the VW's windscreen.

The glass cut both Tommy and his co-driver Jasani's faces, they pressed on and changed the screen themselves (no service crews) at Dar in only 1 Min 45 Sec, try that for yourself some time!

After Dar-es-Salaam the mud and the weather got steadily worse until eventually the VW came to a spot where there once stood a bridge. The middle of the bridge had collapsed after the early cars had crossed. When Fjastad arrived at the bridge a competitor in a Peugeot had got out a nylon towrope and was unsuccessfully trying to pull a Comet - driven by Viscount "Kim" Manderville across the gap.

The 6 crews still on the wrong side of the river were faced with exclusion or bridge building - they choose to re-build the bridge - after manhandling the Comet across the gap, the Comet's power on the end of a tow rope was used to "catapult" the remaining cars over the bridge. The VW was the last car across before the bridge collapsed totally stranding the remaining 5 cars and putting them out of the event. The Fjastad & Jasani VW was now running last car on the road.

SWIMWAGEN?

Later on the cars were stopped again, this time at a swollen river, the organisers gave a time allowance so that competitors could wait to see if the river was going to subside enough to allow the cars to cross. Tommy decided not to wait and, with the VW acting like a submarine, swam its way across the river in 4ft of water. The following two cars, a SAAB and a Datsun, tried to emulate the VW and drowned in the muddy torrent.

The VW was able to ford the river so well because of the crafty modifications made for the '62 event (described earlier). These consisted of a hole cut into the engine firewall and a length of hose that was in the cars tool kit, this went through the hole and after removing the air cleaner fitted on to the carburettor air intake. This would then draw dry air from inside the passenger compartment.

Two more rubber pipes fitted over the exhaust tailpipes and clipped on to the air intake grille under the rear window, keeping the water out of the exhaust.

The engine bay had extra sealing fitted and the ignition system had also been waterproofed using condoms fitted over the coil and distributor!

The rest of the run back to the finish at Nairobi was in Tommy's own words "uneventful"!

The results, when they came out, were a revelation - only 21 cars had survived to get to the finish and in class B there was only one finisher out of the 17 starters in the class. That was the class winning VW of Fjastad and Jasani - what happened to the team of Comets?

Well only two Comets finished, over an hour after the lone VW came home. Safari Veterans “Kim” Manderville and Jodinger Singh drove them. It seems that Tommy made the right choice after all!

What happened to KHD 302 is a mystery from here on. Its fate is unknown.

THE 1200's SWANSONG

1965 was almost a repeat of the 1964 event, in that it was yet another very wet year. 85 starters left Nairobi to battle with the elements. But only 16 returned, again only one VW finished the event - a very wrecked looking VW 1200 crewed by Mohammed Khan & Balbir Singh.

They repeated Tommy Fjastad's triumph by winning the class.

It makes the drive more incredible when you realise that this was the last time a 1192cc Beetle would ever get to finish the rally. The reason for the 1200 not being competitive was that the organisers set the time schedule for the event by using last years fastest times and taking a bit off for luck! The old 1200 was just not quick enough any more.

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