There is a history of World Cup Rally events and my car owner and driver Alastair Caldwell has won two World Cup events in the past and finished well on several others. Alastair’s win on the 2005 London – Dakar is still one of his favorites. Alastair bested a field of modern 4WD machinery day after day in the west African desert and bought his 1300cc Peugeot 205 Rallye to the top step of the podium.

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..

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 17th, 2011 at 8:46 pm and is filed under Events, Hayden, Rallying. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.