The drive down through France following the Road Book was wonderful making little use of major roads and none whatsoever of the autoroute but we were beginning to get a taste of the pace of the event. With the weather improving as we headed south and Hero going so well, we were beginning to relax and enjoy the camaraderie that these big events always bestow.
Spain was even better with untroubled fast motoring under a hot sun along good country roads, which for the most part were deserted, and then came Portugal.
It was our first venture into Portugal and the Special Stages chosen were part of the route, the road being temporarily closed to other users, leaving us no option but to do them; they were difficult. In the Portuguese mountains of red sandstone, the first SS gave us a real taste of what was to come in South America. The rough, bumpy narrow mountain roads with frighteningly acute uphill hairpins sometimes called for a three point turn with our long low slung car. Often we were dragging the exhaust pipe or over-riders as we swirled up through blinding ginger dust, or could hear the pelter of rocks and stones hitting the underfloor. Even the road surfaces of the ordinary Portuguese country roads were rough on the chassis pounding the suspension and jarring us.
It now seemed that we had been away for a month but it was only 4 days and we were soon boarding the Antonov bound for Sao Paulo. Into the cavernous bellies of these huge Russian planes our 66 cars would be driven to be disgorged some 9 hours later.
From the grey skies of the Atlantic-rain-swept city of Lisbon we awoke after a smooth flight to the sub-tropical splendour of Sao Paulo airport with its cloudless blue sky. Soon we were driven by coach to the commercial airport where Hero was waiting under the wing of one of the Antonovs for the 60-mile drive down into the congested city of Sao Paulo. A taste of real heat had had the Mustangs boiling already and the Ford Escorts with their developed engines were popping and banging while A Mustang Convertible had caught fire and it was looking uncertain as to whether it could continue with the rally.
The underground car park giving one night’s home to all our hot cars was humid to such an extent that the windscreen could be nicely cleaned with dry newspaper and even after several hours the radiators remained hot.
We were in South America and everything around and about us told us so. The hotel, with average quality rooms, had a good open restaurant with views over a river and was in a very hilly part of town. In the humidity and all the hustle and bustle there was the real feeling that we had started our adventure and the next mornings departure out of a gateway thronged by cameramen and local enthusiasts set us off on our journey to Londrina, to the Interior and very soon to Argentina and Paraguay.
The Brazilian roads were good, comparable in every way to any good continental autoroute but evidence that we were travelling in a huge country was immediately apparent as the central reservation was a grass paddock, equivalent in width to the length of a football pitch. The petrol stations which though regular were primitive having only two or three pumps with only one of them selling petrol of a very low quality, the other would either sell diesel or a concoction brewed up from sugar cane.
That long, high quality Brazilian road undulated through a green landscape which was intensively farmed and occasionally one caught a glimpse through that green mantle of a blood red soil beneath. There were two Special Stages and we were to drive on that red surface which was soft and soon whirled up under the wheels creating red ‘smoke’ that hung around and made the tight bends through the high sugar cane very dangerous. Five cars were lost on these stages today including the car of the organiser’s wife, Jenny Brittan, who also suffered five broken ribs, fellow BDC member Tony Moy co driving with Roger Clark in the Rally Mexico Escort, and Paul and Mary Kane whose Porsche 911 had featured on the Blue Peter television programme alongside Hero. We therefore avoided the second Stage which would be highly dangerous since dusk was falling and dirt roads driven fast can be treacherous, and found our own way into Londrina, though not without the help of a local taxi driver carrying a fare, who I am sure went out of his way just for the fun of it.
Arising early the next morning it was good to see the indefatigable Alberto Hodari’s Mustang parked outside. He had bought a complete new transmission from the engine backwards and had had this fitted to his Convertible, and then driven all night so as to be in the rally – good spirit and such Terry Thomas manoeuvrings would keep him running through to the end despite daily troubles.