BMW Rallying

I believe this was one of the first road rally BMW compacts on the road in north Wales when it was originally built. Originally it was a Boston green 318ti and was put together at Smiths BMW in Caergwrle after hours by Robbie Hill and myself. Again, this was a budget build with a set of Spax dampers, diesel springs and vented brakes. We fitted a LSD from a E30 and a cage, seats and harnesses from Demon Tweeks. The spotlights were borrowed for its first ever event, the J.D. Romain rally in 2007 which ended in a ditch.

I bought the car from Robbie and took it to a class win on the 2007 PK Rally.

Green is not a lucky colour for Last Minute Motorsport, so a colour change was on the cards.

If your going to paint a car, make it seen!

Again this was done at Smiths BMW by a magician. Cheap paint done quickly, but brilliant job.

Same event, different year, different result

2010 proved to be a different result. The rally started in the woods in daylight. I was on a mission from the start and cleaned the first few selectives. It soon became apparent that it was more luck than talent.

The road went right immediately after the left. Car was still set up to go left, we ended up straight. Trees that have been there a while dont tend to move.

No point hanging about though.

With two bruised shoulders and a bit of a headache, the car was stripped and new parts sourced by the Sunday afternoon. Turns out though that the chassis had taken a bit of a bump at the bulkhead. Off it went to work for a pull on the jig.

Rebuilt - keeping it going

After a front end rebuild, the car saw a few more rallies and a couple of autotests before being sold. Eventually it ended up on Anglesey where it was subsequently bent beyond repair as far as I was aware.

Rising from the flames - Lazarus

Although this looks like the same car, its a completely different build. Coming with an Irish number plate, it was nicknamed Lazarus.

An opportunity to build a second rally car came about in work. This car was built by students to meet the requirements of their college course. the college provided all the necessary safety equipment, and I provided the bits to make it a little more competitive. Originally this one was a 316i, but again ended up with a twin cam motor in it and a modified slipper diff.

Second build - with students

After building the car, some students were able to use it for an Autotest. This actually showed them how difficult it was to drive a rear wheel drive car, something that surprised many of them. Lazarus competed on the Automark rally form Denbigh finishing 6th overall and 1st Novice once again with me in the pilot seat after many years away from it.

Lazarus was again sold locally and promptly parked on top of a hedge on its second rally outing, the first being a little better. After being sold on again, this one was written off as well.

Makes you wonder though, I built and won my class in both of these cars, finishing in the top 10 on both of the rallies, and won Autotests in them, whilst the following drivers all crashed them!