Category Archives: Contributors

Totem Rally 2010

Eric Horst (WA) & Stephen Mats Mats (WA) carve through the snow on their way to 2nd place Historic, 5th Overall. Photo: Tony Latham

Snow is a four letter word. It was also the dominant factor that shaped the 2010 running of the Totem Rally. With 17 crews gathering from BC, Alberta, Oregon, Washington, The Yukon and Arizona, everyone involved knew the competition was going to be tough.  Organized by the West Coast Rally Association, the event started in Cache Creek, BC on Saturday morning with an overnight stop in 100 Mile House before returning to Cache Creek on Sunday. Up to 20 cm of fresh snow in the area added to the challenge.

While most crews arrived with modern all-wheel-drive Subarus or BMWs, a select group choose a different path, the Historic class. Open to cars 25 years old or older, the Historic class honours the 50-plus year history of the event by encouraging owners to actively use their cars over 800 kms of the best back roads BC has to offer.

Gary Webb (AZ) and John Kisela (WA) won Historic Class in their Toyota Celica GT. Photo: Tony Latham

Top placed historic for 2010 was the 1983 Toyota Celica GT of Gary Webb and John Kisela, only seven points clear of Eric Horst and Stephen Mats Mats in their 1983 Audi Quattro. Both teams finished top-5 overall. Full results can be found at www.rallybc.com.

Words & Photos by Tony Latham

Next up on the TSD rally schedule is the legendary Thunderbird Rally, February 12-13, 2011. Classic Car Adventures will be sponsoring the Historic Class which encompasses cars from 1985 and earlier and we’d like to encourage you to come and take part. Bolt up a set of snow tires to your classic Volvo, BMW, Saab, Mini, Beatle, or whatever you’ve got in the garage, and join us for a great adventure!

Need another Porsche, Jerry?

Porsche Tractor

By Nigel Matthews

When Porsche introduced the Cayenne SUV in 2002, a number of Porsche purists and even automotive journalists felt that the company was making a big mistake entering the luxury high-street SUV market.

If they had done their homework, they would have known that this was not Porsche’s first four-wheeler capable of tackling muddy fields. Dr. Ferdinand Porsche built three prototype-tractors in 1934.

The success of these well-built and typically Porsche “over-engineered” machines led to the production of a range of tractors fitted with one- to-four-cylinder engines.

The one-cylinder model was called the Junior, the two-cylinder the Standard, the three-cylinder the Super and the four-cylinder the Master.

There was a model suited to every farmer’s needs. Porsche partnered with the tractor manufacturer Allgaier Brothers; they built 35,000 Porsche tractors until Mannesmann (now owned by Vodafone in a $185 billion US takeover in 2000) took control of building the Porsche tractor in 1956. Mannesmann continued production until 1963 at which time a total of 125,000 units had been built.

A Porsche "Coffee Train" tractor's smooth lines were not for aerodynamics, but to prevent damage to the coffee plants. Photo: PorscheTractors.com

Approximately 1,000 made their way to North America. One beautifully restored, 1959 one-cylinder, 82-cc. Junior, producing 14 h.p, was offered for sale at RM Auctions annual Monterey event. The estimated sale price was $16,000 to $20,000 US. The hammer fell at $28,600 and included the 10-per-cent buyer’s premium.

The new owner has a magnificent example in a condition better than the day it came off the production line. The air-cooled diesel engines were cooled by a fan-duct system that was driven by the crankshaft-driven generator.

If you have ever worked on a type one Beetle or a Porsche 356, this will sound very familiar.

Comedian Jerry Seinfeld is a huge Porsche collector and attended the 59th annual Pebble Beach Concours, bringing two Porsche racing cars; he achieved a second-in-class win with his 1970 Porsche 908/03 race car. The (slightly slower) one-cylinder Porsche model 108 Junior would make a nice addition to his or any other serious Porsche collection.

Goodwood Revival 2010 Videos

Photo: John Colley/Goodwood Revival

Ask anyone who has been to the Goodwood Revival, and you’ll likely hear glowing reviews and wonderful stories. It is certainly #1 on our “must see” list. The annual highlights show on UK television does a great job of showing the hard-fought race action mixed with the vintage atmosphere. I think its safe to say that the on-track racing is some of the most intense historic racing you’re bound to see anywhere. Insanely rare and expensive automobiles going wheel to wheel on one of the fastest circuits is a sight to behold.

Photo: John Colley/Goodwood Revival

We’ve found portions of ITV’s 45-minute show online, along with some other videos that capture the sights and sounds of this event. The full ITV show is available for download via several ‘torrent’ websites if you are so inclined.

Here’s the Tourist Trophy portion of the ITV show, featuring GT cars from the early sixties. Luckily this year’s event had a clean start, but Bobby Rahal’s off-track excursion in F1-designer Adrian Newey’s lightweight e-type will make you cringe! Incredible racing.

Starting life as a perimeter road around the WWII airfield, the track is hellishly fast and must be quite a thrill in a historic car. Not to mention, you need to have an immaculately prepared motor and car to withstand these revs and forces!  To get an idea of the speeds, ride along with Tony Dron as he battles with Anthony Reid in the St. Mary’s Trophy! Dron is in a Ford Zodiac and Reid in a Jag Mk1, drafting and sliding their way around the track. Sadly, it ends with Dron breaking a front hub and retiring. (Skip to 1:30min for the start.)

Again, try and find a copy or download of the ITV show, because the St. Mary’s race was immensely entertaining. Watching ex-F1 driver Martin Brundle in a little A35 duke it out with multi-time Le Mans winner, Tom Kristensen, in the bigger Austin Westminster is not to be missed!

Photo: Matt Sills/Goodwood Revival

Here’s an amateur video of the Whitsun Trophy race that really gives you a sense of the raw sound of the ground-pounding sportscars that the television coverage doesn’t capture.

Thanks to Motorsport Retro for pointing to the ITV TT segment.
Goodwood Photographs are from the Revival website.