Building a rally icon…
The Hillman Hunter may not have gone down as a rally winner at all if it had not been for the 1968 London to Sydney Marathon, the first revival of long distance events. It ran virtually non stop to India – reaching the Indian border in 11 days, so it called for a strong, reliable car that could take all manner of roads and conditions in its stride. Nobody rated the Hunter’s chances, after all Ford and BMC were spending ten times the budget on going for the win.
That’s history. But, the legendary epic has inspired two friends who wanted an Andrew Cowan replica, and to drive it to Sydney, so they came to us. I hunted round for a Hunter, and was really lucky in finding this car – it probably was the finest Hillman Hunter in captivity. It was so good we all hesitated before setting out on this project. It was like new, everywhere. Every bit the equal of the Ford Corsair project, except this had covered just over 20,000 miles from new. It was found in Twickenham and was soon bound for the Witney workshop.
This is to be a thorough job, stripping right down to the last night and bolt and rebuilding back up. Seventies Brown with vinyl roof had to give way to the Rootes shade of light blue of the Andrew Cowan look.
It’s just back from the paintshop and what a joy it is to set about a project where there isn’t an ounce of rust. By the time we have finished, the car will be as-new.
The drivers have been mulling over all sorts of routes, which have been rather hampered by world politics and the fact that the border into Pakistan is closed, so one of the ideas being seriously considered is to go the other way…across Canada, down through America, into South America, and then a ship out of Chile to Australia. It certainly sounds interesting, and as adventurous in its own way as the original event. My job is to ensure that like 1968, the car doesn’t miss a beat and is constantly up for it, day after day, delivering dependable reliability. It’s an expedition, not a rally, and therefore it won’t have the comfort-zone of other competitors around, and back up sweeping the route to bolt back on the bits that fall off, so with this in mind it simply has to be good. It doesn’t matter if it’s the deserts of Iran or the wilds of the Andes, the principles to good sound preparation are the same here.
Long range tanks, uprated suspension, under body protection, waterproofed electrics, our rally exhaust mods, are all on the agenda but at the end of the day it has to be comfortable, so that means supple suspension over terrible roads.
What an interesting project this is going to be.
Simon Ayris
