50 Years of London-Sydney celebrated

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Last weekend it was 50 years exactly that the London to Sydney marathon started from Crystal palace. And to celebrate the occasion, the DAF museum in Holland formed a display of cars and invited a number of guests to have a nostalgic look back at what is often called the toughest rally in the world.

DAF, the Dutch motor manufacturer, was part of the original adventure with two works cars driven by Rob Slotemaker and Rob Janssen plus David van Lennep and Peter Hissink, all of whom were present apart from the late Slotemaker, seen here at the left on a 1968 publicity shot. The 1100cc powered and ‘Variomatic’ driven cars formed a great surprise during the just under a month-long rally, when they performed well, despite a severe crash in Turkey. But star of the show was overall winner of the rally Scotsman Andrew Cowan and his Hilman Hunter, who’d come over to Eindhoven to share some stories.

"An event like this would be impossible to organize today, if only it was forthe political situation in many of the countries. I must say that in many of the places that we crossed at the time, we were felt very welcome, despite several people asking us if it would not have been better to stay away!” said Cowan to local magazine Autosport.nl.

A special exhibition in the DAF Museum in Eindhoven, Holland, with the rally DAFs and Cowan’s Hillman Hunter on display is open to the public now. More information here.

(Words editor, picture DAF Museum)

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