RallySport Magazine September 2016

FEATURE: SOUTH AFRICAN SPECIALS
Firenza CanAm rally
car in action, with Jan
Hettema driving.
Mazda rotary engine on
its way into a 323.
Italian engineering talents proved
less successful than Rory Byrne’s later
tenure at Ferrari, and the development
was scrapped after just a few events.
Mazda was having a fantastic run of
success in Group N racing with its RX-2
and as the RWD 323 had become a best
seller, the idea of a rotary-engined 323
was there to be used.
Engineer/drivers, Colin Burford
and Andre Liebenberg, built the car
for Mazda and Liebenberg rallied it
with some success, though the flamespewing
exhaust had a tendency to
Tony Gosling
has purchased
Force
Motorsport’s
Mazda 2 AP4.
cook the feet of the crew and risk
setting fire to forest stages.
Most of these developments petered
out by the late 1970s when exact copies
of Boreham Escort RS1800s were being
built by Bernie Marriner for Ford in Port
Elizabeth. Toyota was building cars in
close co-operation with Japan and TTE,
Nissan was doing much the same, and
General Motors was using ‘Chevairs’
(Opel Asconas) with Blydenstein
engines.
From 1976-1983 these sophisticated
Euro/Japanese powered cars would
dominate the South African rallying
scene and attract the likes of Tony
Pond, Roger Clark, Hannu Mikkola, Ove
Andersson, Per Eklund, Sandro Munari,
Rauno Aaltonen, Jimmy McRae, Jochi
Kleint, Pentti Airikkala, Leif Asterhag
and many other European drivers to
come and compete in the country.
And then it all changed in 1985, when
the Audi Quattro arrived and was put
in the hands of ‘SuperVan’ Sarel Daniel
van der Merwe. But that is another
story for another day...
- LEON JOUBERT
KIWIS GO MAD FOR AP4
Amongst rumours of another five AP4 based cars coming
to fruition for the 2017 New Zealand Rally Championship,
the RDL Performance team are hard at work
preparing their two Holden Barinas for former Bathurst winner,
Greg Murphy, and Josh Marston.
“Both cars have about 2-3 days of fabrication work left in
them and they’ll be ready for paint,” explains Marston. “The
body kit is half done already as well, it’s progressing nicely.”
Under the skin, both cars will comply with the recently
announced AP4+ rules that allow an 1800cc engine with a
higher 1300kg weight limit.
The engine will be based on an ‘Ecotec’ engine, which will be
stroked back from two-litre, while the cars will run the same
Sadev drivetrain run in the Hawkeswood Mazda, Inkster Skoda
and Paddon Hyundai that were campaigned in 2016.
The team is currently working towards a first public outing at
Rod Millen’s Leadfoot Festival on February 4-5.
- BLAIR BARTELS
Greg Murphy (right) is
excited about the new
AP4+ Barinas to run in
the 2017 NZRC.
66 | RALLYSPORT MAGAZINE - SEPTEMBER 2016