Last time I was in Brazil was 1992, for the Brazilian Grand Prix at Interlagos. Fond memories of sequential all-nighter’s and flooded garages from a F1 pitlane nothing like what we see on TV today.

This trip I hope will be more relaxed, offering an opportunity like every Marathon Rally, to see massive chunks of another continent glide past the window aperture of a very familiar door frame. Lola, the ’64 356, veteran of the 2010 Peking to Paris is fresher that ever and supposedly sitting in Rio waiting for us now.

We took what we learned from P2P and added even more capability to Lola, the car is lighter, has a more advantageous weight distribution, a more powerful motor and a short but significant list of revisions that will offer even more reliability and durability.

We will be carrying a “Yellowbrick” tracking device and over the next few days, I understand these devices will be activated and any chance of anonymity will be dashed as you will be able to establish exactly where we are and how we are progressing.

Lola will wear car # 5. Driven by Steven Harris, navigated by Hayden Burvill.  There will be an organizers website and blog with reports and results, see H&H Rallies. This blog or our Facebook page should lead you directly there as soon as those specifics are available too.

Time to pack up that small bag of clothes, a few more spares for the car, a razor, a hat and a renewed sense of adventure.

At WEVO we are fortunate to mix our work and fun pretty often and the 2012 Faultline 500 Rally provided another great opportunity to do some rigorous testing of WEVO products in development. We also used this close-to-home event to test parts from other vendors that may have a future on WEVO prepared cars heading further afield – once we validate their function claims and durability.

This great event is in the 3rd year of running. “Rally” is used in a slightly different context than readers of this blog have become accustomed, being more of a route-book-tour than an event with timing, scoring and competitive structure. The emphasis is on cars, people, California back roads and the classic car hobby that bought us all together for the weekend. It is a great formula and our 500 mile tour in central California took me over some of my favorite roads, some new road numbers I have been eager to drive, plus introduced me to some new favorites and some very good gravel test sections for both product development and rally car testing.

Our vehicle for the weekend was “Rabbit” so named in homage to the previous owner who was proudly identified as K*** Rabbit K***** on the Pink Slip. Rabbit is a 1973.5 911T, non-sunroof coupe. A CA car from new, this bodyshell is absolutely rust free and in great shape overall. However, like too many long-hoods, Rabbit has been egregiously violated by the addition of the “dealer installed” AC system from that era. An offense I will never adjust to.  Two of my four ’72, ’73 911′s have this hacked out passenger footwell bulkhead. It makes me sad to think of the technicians performing this horrible sloppy work with the excuse of “fixed price labor” as their peace of mind to deploy reckless speed instead of the appropriate respect deserved by a brand new Porsche…. One day I will work out how to elegantly repair this area and get over it.

Rabbit was last tagged in 1992, it had a small amount of damage to the LF fender when I bought it in “non-op”a few years ago. It looked like a pick-up tray bed had backed over the top of the fender and taken out the headlight and fender. The motor was inoperable and when we stripped it, discovered two cracked pistons, one with such serious detonation the piston was in several pieces. The rare 1/2 year only 1973 2.4 CIS system was complete, unmolested and looked salvageable. The paint was (still is !) very rough, with what looks like the remnants of an early 80′s metallic and clearcoat in gunmetal bronze over the original 936-9-3 code Silver. The clearcoat has crystallized and reduced to a sharkskin textured matte. The repaired LF fender, hood and RF fender now sport DP90 primer in matte black, so Rabbit has a bit of a “look” going on – but a look not fully appreciated by some of my aesthetisti friends.

Mechanically, Rabbit has enjoyed lavish care and enjoys a very high specification that is in direct contrast with Rabbit’s “look”. All new front suspension with a couple of tweeks from the factory parts lists, all new rear suspension featuring a development WEVO SPS kit, WEVO Ohlins, SC torsion bars. Mid 70′s 930 Front Anti Roll Bar, Factory 16mmRear Anti Roll Bar with our base line set-up and corner weight template we use to evaluate the WEVO cars we build and develop.

The 915 transmission is a unique combination I wanted to try using a mix of OE factory ratios from the various 70′s cars. This unique ratio set combined with the necessary mechanical speedo 8:31 CWP from the mid ’75 911′s before the electronic speedo was introduced. The taller final drive ratio seems counter intuitive in combination with the numerically weak 140hp output declared for the 1973 2.4 CIS motor, but it works great. The transmission also has a WEVO GateShift, XT_032 bearing retainer, XT_100 side cover and a rare OE Coarse Spline ZF LSD.

The motor is completely stock but freshly rebuilt without being full of all-new parts. I was able to find the parts necessary to get this simple 1973 only version CIS functioning correctly. A recent run with the AF meter in the tailpipe confirmed that mixture is correct across the range – most importantly at full throttle – I was still looking for the smoking gun related to the damaged pistons. The motor runs crisply, but not vigorously like my MFI ’72S motor. The sense of torque is very nice (reminding me of Tyson’s very sweet 2.5 benchmark MFI motor) but the peak power is noticeably low, making Rabbit the kind of momentum car I most enjoy driving. The upside is the amazing fuel economy. I have not done my numbers accurately yet, but a lunchtime napkin calculation indicated over 30pmg (US Gallons = 3.8 litres) for the 660 miles we did during the Faultline 500 weekend.

Now back to the Faultline 500…..

A loop that starts in Hollister CA, overnights in Morro Bay on the central CA coast before returning north on Sunday. The event ends in Tres Pinos, just south of Hollister. Unlike the Porsche centric events I participate in with R-Gruppe etc, the Fautline 500 had a nice mix of marques. Alfa Romeo having the highest badge count, a massive 50′s Chrysler Imperial taking the heavy weight honors, a bodacious Smokey and the Bandit Trans Am taking the horsepower title and just two 911′s and a 914 representing for Porsche.

The route took us out east from Hwy 25, across the ridgelines to the central valley, past the experimental Brightpoint installation of focused solar energy and the eery glow of energy converging on the absorber atop the collector tower. Kind of a combination of Indiana Jones opening the Ark and a broken fairground ride.

After a quick drink in Coalinga, we took to the Parkfield Grade, 6.5 miles of twisted, narrow tarmac and 2100 ft of elevation gain. The south side of the ridge is decent gravel and we trickled down into Parkfield to a set lunch at the V6 Ranch Cafe with an amazing Apple dumpling desert that reputedly involves the use of Mountain Dew in the creation of the dumpling syrup.

The afternoon had some more familiar roads, some enjoyed recently on Targa California. Then we took to the gravel again to cross south from Hwy 58 to the old goldmining town of Pozo. This took us across another 3000 ft ridgeline at La Panza (defunct goldmine), a great stoney unpaved road, reminding me of the Namibian canyon driving in January this year. In Pozo there was a bar, beer on tap and I caught some new friends exploring a Beertini – basically a jug of beer with a dozen desperate olives swilling in the bottom…

The balance of the Saturday was increasingly residential as we neared the coast and cruised into Morro Bay and the Days Inn – the traditional Faultine 500 destination. Then the bench racing and story telling really began in earnest. Complimentary Margaritas in plastic pint cups, quickly turned the warm afternoon to nightfall.

The sensible headed off to dinner at one of the numerous fish restaurants. The less so, participated in the car park spirit until the pizzas finally arrived. One Alfa needed a new UJ installed and the Trans Am stayed on axle stands all night while the unsalvageable condition of the rear brakes was debated endlessly and finally conceded, by which time it was declared that the clear light of day would be a better time to make a lucid decision, plus Pep Boys would be open at 9.00am …… or was that 10.00am……

Last I remember is heading to “the” local bar with new friends, a hard working cover band was punching out standards for an eclectic local crowd including cowboys, surfers, tourists and ….us?! Experience reminded me how these evenings usually end, so after a couple more beers I found my bed by 1 and set the alarm for 8. Others were victims of less experience.

Sunday was another glorious CA summer day, a cool coastal morning with promise of some searing sun later in the day. Our route took us north on Hwy 1, a couple of deviations on roads that were as tight as driveways, canyons, cyclists, energy self sufficient homesteads, classic wooden barns, long views to the ocean, all great tonic for a Sunday morning while looking for excuses not to have to push too hard.

The route inevitably used the Nacimiento-Fergusson Rd, to cross from Hwy 1 back into the Salinas River valley and Hwy 101. Practically the only connector, this is a magnificent single track road, one best enjoyed without oncoming traffic! Once through the Federal Territory of the Fort Hunter Liggett, we stopped for lunch in Lockwood, a kind of hobby farm hamlet that has failed to gain inertia in a pretty part of the state. If you love CA Live Oaks, this is the area for you. Some of the most astonishing specimens to be enjoyed. Another feature of the region is the Lockwood – San Ardo road, about 20 miles of great high speed gravel. A road that needs to be respected – you can easily be traveling at 60 or 70 mph on this well graded low grip surface and this is not the type of driving we all get a lot of practice with these days. The road climbs up and over the ridge to reveal the Salinas River valley and Hwy 101 to the east. The climb and decent with both sweepers and hairpins is exactly what I needed to “test” some parts and remind myself why proper driving should be practiced regularly.

We joined our old friend – Paris Valley Rd heading north, then went off-instructions to avoid Hwy 101 and Carmel Valley Rd, neither of which held much fascination on a summer Sunday afternoon. We joined back to the Faultline 500 route near Soledad, perfectly timed to meet the earliest of the Faultline 500 cars, Rallyists that had been more circumspect on Saturday night….

The last of the unpaved was the most technical, Gloria Rd being a tight twisty climb across the ridge near the Pinnacles National Monument. Some corners are practically full lock in a 911, many corners are 1st gear and the road seems to go up and up and up. Eventually you can glance back down the canyon and see the Salinas River and the silver strip of Hwy 101, far down below. Now you enjoy a slightly more open down hill run to rejoin Hwy 25.

At Tres Pinos we concluded the 2012 Faultline 500 with an enjoyable private buffet, cars arriving regularly until everyone was accounted for. More stories, number swapping and relaxation to end a great weekend. Then Tracey drove Rabbit home at 30+ mpg.

Like so many 356C’s, Blu Mule has been loved and driven, modest wear and tear openly on display, but good rust free bones and general condition. The perfect foundation for our task and a car that many will enjoy driving in the process of marketing the WEVO 356-5 Speed transmission.

The car was stored over the winter in upstate NY and I elected to drive rather than transport Blu Mule to CA, liberate serious seat time aid contemplation of a few of the technical challenges on the 356 5 Speed project and life in general. No radio means plenty of time alone with those thoughts. Including the 4075 miles logged on this trip, I now have over 20,000 miles in 356′s since September 2010. I reckon I am now well tuned to the character of the late model 356′s and how wonderful they can be for modern adventure, vintage motoring. It was also the best opportunity to explore and validate some of the concepts and ideas we have for stretching the enjoyment of the 356′s into the future.

I did the stretch from NYC to Santa Fe in early May (2282 miles), one 781 mile marathon in 11hrs 57 minutes (63.5 mph door to door average) proving that the 356 can hold it’s own on the back roads of America’s heartlands.  Avoiding the Interstate system, I enjoyed that fantastic drive from Kansas City to Santa Fe, a little Interstate at each city that book-ended a day of farm roads and a zig-zag route across Kansas, Oklahoma and New Mexico.

I left the car in Santa Fe, while I headed back to CA for work, July 4th offering the best opportunity to finish the transfer trip. This time, accompanied by Tracey, who was about to enjoy her first long road trip in a 356.

We picked a scenic route, with 3 1/2 travel days at our disposal, then looked for landmarks to tackle on the way – with the least amount of Interstate practical. We logged another 1793 miles and took in some fine back roads in the deserts of NM, AZ, UT, NV and CA. In addition we tackled National Parks, North rim Grand Canyon, Zion, Bryce Canyon and Yosemite. We also visited landmark sites, Los Alamos, Valley of the Gods, Monument Valley, Mono Lake, Bodie (CA – ghost town) and the Tioga Pass 9945 ft on the way home.

The performance of the 356 was faultless and reiterated that wonderful motoring adventures can still be had in a 47 year old Porsche, mid summer with no AC – all at 31+ mpg (US gallons ~ 7.5 l/100km) average for the trip.

The specifics of the 356-5 Speed project will be revealed in the near future. Additionally, some of our other 356 products we target to encourage 356′s to get back out there and tackle some long road trips that they can be ideally configured for. (Blu Mule was already testing some new WEVO 356 parts…… logging over 4000 test miles already……)

My good friend John Forcier (AKA “Fishcop”) from Brisvegas recently invited me to join him at the 2012 Philip Island Classic. With various pressures here in the USA, it did not really fit with my next scheduled travel to Australia, so I had to abandon any thought of joining John and the Porsche racing crew at Philip Island.

I suggested to John I would blog something about the event if he sent me a paddock photo. In researching the event a little for this post I soon discovered that I had grossly misunderstood the giant scale of this annual event and the important role it must hold for Australian Historic and Classic racing.

For 2012, a record 573 race cars are entered and a further 620 Classic and Historic cars are on display. Remember that Australia as a whole nation has only 2/3rds the population of California. This is an astonishing number of cars and I am sure it will make for a very busy weekend. Unfortunately I have not been able to locate a website that offers either concise entry, schedule or results, but I will update here if I do.

Philip Island is one of Australia’s most classic and historied racing circuits, it enjoys huge camp-out weekend’s for MotoGP, Classic bike racing, Classic Car racing, World Supebikes and V8 Supercar racing. Kind of like the Watkins Glen of Australia.   http://www.phillipislandguide.com/maps.html

John is there with an all Porsche crew, tending to cars in the Sb and Sc categories for ’61-’69 production Sports Cars and ’70-’77 Productions Sports cars respectively. I understand there will be more coverage on the Type 901 site in Australia, home forum for most of these racers. Content is thin so far, perhaps the post event will include more recollections and photos.

http://www.typ901.org/showthread.php?t=3659

Philip Island is a small island near Melbourne, where the opening race of the 2012 F1 season will be held next weekend – March 18th. For a motor racing enthusiast, the back to back weekends would bookend a great visit to the area. Accommodation on the island itself is limited, so I am guessing John snapped this early morning i-phone photo, groggy eyed from his sleeping bag on top of a race trailer….

In those 7 weeks I have enjoyed an intense period of final car assembly and preparation at Alastair’s house in Maidenhead, followed by an equally intense15,000km of Classic Car Rallying through 13 nations.

 

Thanks to John Glynn and his capacity spin a yarn and harvest images from other sources while also interpreting my spartan SMS text contributions, I can look back over his blogjacking and see that for the most part, the story of the 35 car has been adequately recorded.

For me it is too soon to be able to divide the individual days and separate incidents into a cohesive string of adventure. I expect that will come later when I have more time to reflect after getting through some of my waiting work load now that I have returned to my desk at WEVO.

 It was a great education and privilege to ride alongside Alastair and see him deploy his experience from over 20 marathon Classic car rallies. His capacity to instantly process the road condition and evaluate how much punishment the 912 would cope with is quite amazing – especially when you consider this is his first event in a Porsche. Metering out the potential and the durability of the car in such a way that even on the World Cup sections on the morning of the 29^th and last day, we were able to push Owen and Matt in the P5 MG in a way that means they could not slacken in protection of their 10 minute advantage.  

As John has recorded, the 912 took a real battering and required repairs on an almost daily basis. However, what is more critical is that the 912 “never failed to proceed”, unlike our competitors who accumulated time penalties when they failed to make control times due to mechanical delays.

For 29 days you make decisions about how time is managed almost purely by the Rally clock, prioritizing and deferring maintenance depending on resources, the conditions the following day, weather predictions, pursuing competition, fatigue, nutrition, etc, etc. That is part of the appeal, the need to simultaneously resolve all the variables as a team of two and your car, yet still have the reserves to deal with the unexpected – and do all this while traveling in foreign lands, with unfamiliar cultures, distracting landscapes and other travel hazards.  

For some this reads like a motorist’s nightmare, but for me this is the very essence of why the marathon events need to exist and why being a participant holds so much fascination.

There is a back-story too, a pretty easy one to guess. The unprecedented environment to test the technical prowess of WEVO and the product design philosophy that extends through every product carrying the WEVO brand. Few companies arrange to test their products so severely or thoroughly. Even fewer are willing to do so in real-time in front of a critical and intelligent audience. Most of you reading the blog, Alastair Caldwell, car owner and super critical technician, the Rally participants at large, all scrutinizing and judging whether your gadget actually did well today or not. Finally me – perhaps my most harsh critic and least concessional.   

Technically, how did the WEVO 912 fare? There were many, many systems and components that performed exactly as predicted, some were stock Porsche systems, some were WEVO development systems, some were up rated factory parts, some were pure WEVO parts etc.

On the flip side, there are a percentage of systems and parts that did not meet the rigors of the event. Some were the result of poor design and design decisions. Some were due to error in execution and manufacture. Some were due to lack of testing and some due to unavoidable ignorance to the severity of the conditions that the event would present. Others were the result of the “willful damage” that is described above. What is important – above anything, is that the 912 was always able to continue, often with deferred maintenance and do so with sufficient competitiveness that our class win was secure.  

For 2012, the longest World Cup Rally event so far, the field is split into 5 categories.

Alastair and I are running in the “under 2 litre Classics” where we are one of only 3 cars from the 1960′s. Joining the Space Station 1968 Porsche 912, will be the 1966 VW Karmann Ghia, the 3rd being a venerable 1964 Volvo PV544C. The class total of 12 cars includes mostly marathon rally stalwarts – Peugeot 504′s and Volvo 144′s. A sole Mk2 Ford Escort is looking to steal it’s way to the top.

Having considered the route and the fact that January in the tropics is often the wettest month of the year, we figure the rear engine, rear wheel drive and light weight of the Porsche 912 will offer us the least time diggin’ and pushing. Now we have to find out if it will give us the least time fixing and worrying about fixing…… These marathon events are not only about keeping moving in tricky terrain and keeping friends with the timekeeping god’s, the car has to do this day after day with only modest support and options for repair.

Like every WEVO project there are aspects of the 912 that are conservative and reliable, on the flip side there is some experimentation and a little art. An outwardly simple marathon car has hundreds of hours preparation and consideration, normally a few false starts and a few do-overs. The 912 was all of this, so now we get to see how well that time was spent.

At just 1900lbs  (864kg) with 15 litres of fuel. That is pretty light for a competition car equipped with a roll-cage and two proper seating positions in reclining seats good for 1000km / day. There is no way we could have built a 911 at this weight point and been as comfortable with the durability expected from the 912..

The false start on the 2011 Budapest to Bamako Rally left some unfinished business, much like when Steven and I missed the 2009 London Casablanca because of bungled shipping.

 The remedy is my participation in the World Cup Rally 2012 from London to Capetown.

Looking to recapture the vibe is always a risk, the enhanced recollections of good times past etc, etc, risky business.

I am aiming low, for me the fascination of being on the road takes very few extra props, the alignment of very few priorities, but a willingness to surrender to whatever-happens-next. It takes a few days to get there and then it wont last long enough.

This relatively featureless photo sums up all that in an image. A grass field in nowhere Kazakhstan, a bowl of nutritious but ordinary and unrecognizable food on a plastic plate, a barely cool beer and my dining buddy for the night Erdal Tokcan from Turkey. The exhaustion of the past 7 days is cut through with half a smile for the camera, then our bi-nation conversation continues in the middle of nowhere. This is what I hope to recapture, new friends on the road, exhaustion and the need to accommodate everything that comes along, right now! as it comes along. No extra stopping, no resting, no falling behind, stay just on top of everything, managing enough reserves to keep going and see if that makes you a contender.

The event was very thinly described in English – by the Hungarian organizers. The competition element was not explained in any detail. What we discovered as we were handed the race record sheets on Day 1 morning of the rally was a complete surprise. Effectively a long distance treasure hunt, the event results would never record good driving and good navigation unless those were in conjunction with amazing riddle solving and strategy involving much more electronics than we can operate with 2 people in the 205 Puddle Jumper.

So Alastair and I had a nice drive from London out to Budapest, thrashed around the mountains to the south of Modena in the dark – looking for “Ditta’s phone number” then abandoned the Day 1 challenges at midnight and Q14 of 18 when it became obviously fruitless. We arrived in a traffic free Genova at 0200 hrs.

Our decision to withdraw came after receiving the race sheets for Day’s 2, 3 and 4 at the 0630 hrs Day 2 briefing. The myriad of cryptic puzzles, the hundreds of way-points and alternate strategies were more than we could competitively resolve on our hand held GPS. The three and four person teams set to work with their laptops (plural), Google Maps and created their routes. Alastair and I had breakfast……

It became clear that a Minivan with sand tires, a BGan Satellite Internet connection and a three or four man team would have the best chance of remaining competitive. It would take a routine of sleep, navigate, strategize and drive, a two car team sharing data would make that slightly easier.

The veterans of the B2 Rally who have all this at their disposal will have a great event. It seemed like a great crowd and there were a lot of cars. We wish them all safe travels and hope that the whole group arrive in Bamako without incident.

Considering that our goal was to be competitive and show the amazing tenacity of the Peugeot 205 1300cc Rallye in the Africa, we had to reconcile the fact that this was not an option. Rather than downscale to the tourist class, we elected to withdraw. There will be other Rallies in other parts of the world and Alastair and I had time to discuss all sorts of interesting distractions.

So this one is closed for now, but if I can come up with a VW T5 TDi Synchro, some decent tires, 3 companions and a swag of electronics, I reckon B2 2012 would be a possibility.

In reality I hope that in January 2012 I will be competing in the 2012 London Capetown Rally.

Those same vendors are part of our custom car building process and it’s their capacity to make short runs of parts and R&D style experiements that has always been the foundation of our product development.

Lola, the Peking to Paris 356 is a combination of carefully prepared original equipment and carefully designed an manufactured WEVO systems to complete the Marathon Rally specification of the car.

These companies are all commercial partners of Windrush – so we pay for their services, but I should add that we always enjoy special treatment and value when we are involved in projects cars like the Peking to Paris 356. This is in part due to the fact that these companies are run by gear heads just like me, but also they enjoy the challenge and opportunity to be involved in something special and be a part of the process and the success.

In no particular order, a big thankyou to;

Performance Fabrication, San Carlos CA. For the manufacture of the 26 liter long range fuel tank that is nested under the original spare wheel (where the battery was originally located). Fabricated in Aluminum with a motorcycle style filler cap, this long range tank allowed us to achieve over 720km range on the highway.

Rustworks, San Carlos CA. For the water-jet cutting on various parts, tow hooks, fuel pump brackets, etc, etc. Plus hands-on assistance from Jeromy Brians as my wing man at midnight one night when I was procrastinating about blasting a hole through the right rear fender to execute the incomplete tailpipe….

ARE, Brisbane, Australia. For the custom engine oil cooler unit nested into the engine decklid. We have worked with Richard and Val at ARE for the past 6 years on a variety of production, custom and experimental coolers. On each and every occasion their work has been superb quality, accurate to drawing and on-time. The absence of the doghouse cooler on this 356 motor put total reliance on the remote cooler. The remote filter and thermostat also played a part in keeping the engine oil clean and a fast warm-up on the sub zero mornings in Mongolia. On the steepest climb, mid 20′s (°C) ambient and over 2200m altitude, the oil temp barely made it to the middle of the gauge. This decklid cooler installation has all the hallmarks of a forthcoming WEVO 356 product – with over 16,000km testing already completed! You had better make a fixture Richard….

Edwards Machining and Manufacturing, Longmont CO. Doug Edwards is one of our long suffering and most prolific suppliers. For Lola, Doug churned out the prototype fuel pre-filter housings, fuel delivery block, front upper damper mounts, damper tops for the custom Ohlins dampers, etc, etc. All short runs and all perfect to drawing, then perfect in functionality on the rally.

Quiet Horsepower, Newark CA. Pete Weber came to our rescue after a very nicely manufactured system delivered from the East Coast failed to meet our requirements and had to be discarded. We ran my Bursch 912 exhaust on Lola while we coordinated for Pete to have the car for a short period and for him to fabricate a custom system with the muffler mounted in the right rear fender. Pressed for time, Pete had to give back the car without completing the tailpipe. Hence - thanks to Jeromy Brians (above) for helping me to finish that necessity. Ultimately in complete contrast to my doubts about the configuration and durability of Pete’s system, it gave zero issues and allowed Lola to ford the deepest water we encountered without concern. Never have I been so happy to be wrong about a component and once we made it through the very rough first 7 days of the event, it barely crossed my mind again. Thanks to Pete for knocking out a functional system in short order and working a Sunday too. The “through the fender” tailpipe drew lot’s of compliments and with my passenger window down, the crackle of the tailpipe against canyon walls and freeway armco is a sound that will forever remind me of the Peking to Paris 356.

Maxsport Competition tyres, Rhayader, Wales UK. Purely a phone and fax relationship with Maxsport Competition Tyres. Their RB3D2 tire being one of the only choices I could find in the 175/70-15 size we needed for the 356. A larger diameter tire would have helped our ground clearance, but a larger diameter tire was going to prevent us from having the two tires under the hood – the two RB3D2 tires barely fit with the top one deflated!  Maxsports could not validate the longevity of the tires, the most extreme test previous had been on a Classic SAAB managing just 5000km on a set. We bought the last remaining 12 tyres in existence and distributed them across Asia hoping we would rendezvous with the tires before we needed them.
Ironically we logged over 6000km on the first set on the way to Almaty and these were only about 25% worn. We had no punctures and although the front tires both had significant bruises and sidewall scars from rocks, they were still completely serviceable. We changed to our 4 spare tires in Alamaty and those tires took us to Paris and beyond, another 10,000km without being more than about 40% worn.
Maxsport Competition tyres are racing re-tread tires, so if you ever had a doubt about the durability of a re-tread tire, I can assure you that Maxsport company knows how to make a competition tire. The tires were potentially one of the most troublesome pieces of equipment on the event and thanks to Maxsport Competition Tyres, another one of our zero issue decisions.

Harvey Weidman, Oroville CA. Faced with the knowledge that steel wheels can be repaired just about anywhere with the simplest of tools, we had to choose between 4.5 x 15″ wheels and 5.5 x15″ steel wheels. The 4.5′s took it with a weight advantage that tallied 21lbs over the 6 wheels we would be carrying. We then rounded up seven 4.5″ wheels, all in the thicker gauge early 911 configuration and sent them to Harvey for his blessing. Harvey restored all the wheels to correct roundness and run-out, then blitzed them with a light spray can silver to ward off rust. We dented the Right rear somewhere in Mongolia, probably as we ran without dampers for several hundred kilometers. Even the dented wheel was working fine, we eventually cycled that wheel out of service when we swapped tires in Almaty. Other cars had split wheels, cracked wheels, broken spokes, shattered hubs…..our 40 something year old Porsche wheels were fine with our modest size tires.

Dan Acker Leatherworks, San Francisco CA. First time working with Dan after countless recommendations from others. We chose a late 70′s Recaro seats, then treated them to new leather with black Mohair velour inserts. Dan refurbished the cushions and Pirelli webbing to make the seats safe and comfortable. Our office chairs for over 300 hours, the seats were marvelous. The Mohair acted as velcro and only once was I dislodged clear from my seat and hanging in the belts when we nose-dived onto a huge rock in Mongolia.

Thanks once again to you all for your contribution to our Peking to Paris experience.

So without any hierarchy a big thank you goes to the following people for their role in our adventure;

My wife Tracey for being on stand-by to discover ways to ship parts on short notice to countries neither of us could spell 9 months ago. Also for holding the WEVO fort during my 45 day absence.

The staff at Steven Harris Architects in Manhattan, NY for helping Steven arrange all the event logistics, paperwork, insurance, payments etc as we prepared for the event.

Alan Klingman at “The Stable” in San Francisco – Alan located the 1964 356C when we started looking for one. Alan built us a fantastic and appropriate motor and the transmission, plus provided hours of 356 specific technical guidance and advice while we made decisions about how to prepare the car for the Peking to Paris challenges. Alan also responded like lightning after I called him on a Satellite phone from the middle of the desert in Uliastay, Mongolia to tell him we needed new swing axle tubes after the suspension breakages that day. Between Alan, his fabricators at Hasselgren Racing and Tracey, the necessary kit of repair parts were shipped within hours by TNT and beat us into Almaty, Kazakhstan by 48 hours, where we had scheduled to install the new parts. Alan sprung to service a second time, finding a spare 12 volt generator to send to Istanbul, once again between Alan, Tracey and TNT, the parts beat us by a generous margin and we had no concerns about intercepting our spare parts. (unlike some of our fellow competitors who chased late arriving spares all across central Asia).

John Glynn for Blogjacking this site on a regular basis, taking scant reports from various media and making them into webentertainment for those wanting to keep up with our adventure. John also played a logistic role in delivering our spare tires to Almaty and Istanbul, plus in an emergency move John located and couriered some spare generator brushes to Mrs Louisa Gosden in London (wife of Adrian – Aston Martin DB5 # 98) who was en route to Alamaty for a “romantic weekend” – and most importantly as express courier of a half dozen more rear dampers to feed the Aston’s continuous appetite for rear suspension parts.
John also came down to Paris for the end of the Rally and made sure I didn’t get into trouble at the prize giving or subsequent late night partying. Unfortunately I wasn’t there for John when he inadvertently sent a text intended for me to his wife at 3.30am in the morning – “taxi told us it was an all night dance club….turned out to be a brothel, I’m heading back to the hotel, see you for breakfast”. Finally, John for meeting me at Heathrow last Wednesday, suffering the last of my post Rally decompression babble and taking Lola away to test drive and form his opinions for an upcoming article about this wonderful car.

Gwendolyne Indjoudjian in Almaty, Kazakhstan for being our central Asia point of contact and receiving agent for tires and suspension parts. I had never met Gwendolyne, she was introduced via email as a friend of a client of Steven’s. Gwendolyne’s willingness to help us in a foreign country and at significant inconvenience to herself was a lovely act of charity. In true rally fashion, I spent just a few minutes totally inappropriately dressed and filthy dirty in the lobby of a 5 star hotel thanking Gwendolyne while her fiance, Steven and his clients prepared to dine locally. Thanks also to Gwendolyne’s Aunt, who allowed us to store 4 tires and a box of suspension parts in her garage so that Gwendolyne did not need to drag them up the stairs into her small apartment….

Kim Cramer for stepping up as our 24hr emergency contact and data feed while we were in the Eastern Hemisphere. Kim was fully equipped with every policy number, every name, every number and copies of legal documents and passports. Thankfully none of this was needed, but being prepared as thoroughly and with an expert on stand-by this allowed us to draw on Murphy’s law and need no crisis support.
Kim was feeding me constant data as we encountered our first emergency on day 8 and were limping into Uliastay. Names and locations of local repair shops, possible alternatives and local signage to guide us to the resource. I took great comfort in knowing we had found the most appropriate repair shop in the town – horror at the fact that they would be unlikely to repair our damage. It turned out that once I reflected on our situation and put faith in the ingenuity of the locals, that they probably could fix the car, it was more my lack of “how do we get there from here” state of mind that was the obstruction. A few hours later when Kim’s intelligence had confirmed the resources of Uliastay (or lack of) I was able to resign to watching a craftsman with a stick welder, rods of unknown alloy, earth strap of tattered braid puddle the rear suspension of the 356 back into a whole assembly.

Brian Kirkis our Technician at WEVO and Derek Bosman, our summer intern who both worked long hours and prepared every element of the car to the level of zero faults. It was critical to embrace the reality that this car was going into an environment where a 356 should not be taken and needed to survive without any real support system beyond great preparation and the tools and spares on board. The fact that every system on the car performed exactly as designed, intended and prepared is true illustration of the attention to detail necessary to prepare competent and competitive cars.
Thanks also to Derek for visiting Place Vendome at the finish line and seeing the car in Europe and to admire his work again after the car completed the event – good luck with your Engineering studies at Delft.
Brian can look forwards to taking the whole car apart again when it returns and to see just how much harm was inflicted on the 356 in 37 days.

Garrick Staples and Robert McClements who were our “spark buddies” for 8 days straight from Belokurikha to Samarkand, making sure we were never short of voltage, they shadowed our progress to converge on a daily, mid-day schedule so we could swap our depleted battery into the VW and take their fully charged battery to completed the day. They also provided the guiding light when we needed to run the last 200km into Belokurikha with no lights at all, generator dead, running on battery alone, two little aircooled cars skimming over some perfect Russian asphalt roads under what was fortunately a full moon in the early morning hours.

Dave Staples, Garrick’s father who entered both 2007 and 2010. In late February, Dave met with Steven and I, offered very valuable intelligence about the 2007 event and some insights into how his preparation for 2010 was skewed by his 2007 experiences. We applied some of that logic directly to the preparation of the 356 and were very happy that we did.

Our new friends and competitors that we made on the Rally. A real sense of community develops as we moved en-masse across the far east, central Asia, eastern Europe and into the EU proper. In particular the help of Ahmet and Erdol from the Anadol was amazing. They had connections reaching into central Asia and without their corresponding connection to a 356 enthusiast in their native Turkey who surrendered his spare 12volt generator for a midnight trip to Tashkent (via yet another Turkish connection), we would have had to rely upon our “spark buddies” until Istanbul.

Every evening was a lesson in humility, there were always rally friends who had either a better or worse day than you had. For a group of people who often enjoy being over-achievers in their daily life, it was very rare to feel particularly extraordinary when everyone has made it into the end of day control and all share the same huge sense of accomplishment on a daily basis.

Thanks too for all those who participated in a more modest manner, enjoyed our adventure vicariously through the information on this site and others bolgsites. It was a great adventure and one that I would recommend to anyone who has the inclination to attempt something like this.