21/1 -21: 57 år sedan Mini vann Monte Carlo-rallyt 1964!

[Fredrik]

Igår 21/1 2021 var det exakt 57 år sedan Paddy Hopkirk och co-driver Henry Liddon tog den första segern i det klassiska Monte Carlo-rallyt som lade grunden till Minis fantastiska historia.
Den 21 januari 1964 var man först över mållinjen med 33 EJB, och kommande år dominerade Mini (BMC) i rallyt genom olika förare.
Förvisso fråntogs Mini segern 1966 av de franska domarna då Citroën (surprise ;) ) gavs segern tack vare något påstått fel med belysningen på Minin.
1967 var det dags igen då vår egen hedersmedlem Rauno Aaltonen knep segern och befäste Mini som en legendar på bilkartan 8)

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[Fredrik]

Här är en tydlig förklaring vad som skedde 1966. En hel del var upprörda inklusive prisutdelare Furst Rainier av Monaco!

”55 years ago: when the Minis were robbed in (1966) Monte Carlo.
Mäkinen, Aaltonen and Hopkirk dominated the event from the start, and it was in this order that they completed a clean sweep of the top three positions overall at the finish, not only a hat-trick but a triple triumph.
That the Minis should win for a third year seemed not only embarrassing but intolerable. Something had to be done: the race commissioners descended upon the Minis, stripping them down in an attempt to find an infringement.
“They counted all the teeth on the gears in the gearbox,” Hopkirk later said in a BBC interview. “They took the tyres off the wheels and weighed the wheels then weighed the tyres separately. It was ridiculous – they couldn’t find anything wrong.”
After an 8-hour scrutineering session, a bulletin was posted stating that the three Minis had all been disqualified because they had the wrong bulbs in their headlamps…
This was also the reason given for removing the fourth-placed Roger Clark’s Cortina-Lotus from the classification, which meant that the Finnish Citroën driver Pauli Toivonen was crowned the winner.
Newly-elevated winner Pauli Toivonen was deeply embarrassed, refusing to accept the winner’s trophy and Prince Rainier of Monaco showed his anger at the disqualifications by leaving the rally before attending the prize-giving which he had always done in previous years.”