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A Triumph for Quality A Latin American Challenge Vuelta America del Sud - what the Argentinian automobile club had thought up as a spectacular marathon for standard cars - was not exactly a "South American tour". This title concealed what was really a 39 day long ordeal for the candidates, with time limits which were almost impossible to attain and which left no room for having a look at the countryside. In the middle of August, a 30,000 kilometre long mixture of sand tracks enveloped in clouds of dust, almost impassable jungle forest and treacherous paths covered with stones lay before the 57 rally cars waiting to start from Buenos Aires.
They were all standard, group 1 cars, which were only allowed to be prepared for this fascinating challenge by small alterations such as roll-over cages for the protection of the passengers, larger fuel tanks to permit fewer stops to refuel, and as high a ground clearance as possible. Some of the most experienced rally veterans in Europe and overseas had applied for a place in the eight registered Mercedes-Benz cars: Timo Makinen, "the Flying Finn", Sobieslaw Zasada, the Polish rally fox, the Scot Andrew Cowan, winner of last year's London-Sydney marathon and the experienced local matador Jose Araujo drove 450 SLC standard coupes, while the Briton, Tony Fowkes, the German Kleint and Pfuhl teams and the Argentinian Caballero drove 280 E standard four-door saloons.
The rally route went from Argentinia through Paraguay to Brazil, where for the first time the drivers were really put to the test in the Amazon jungle. In the Indio reserves and rubber plantations the rally armada struggled through knee-deep mud or over huge sand dunes. |
Favourites like Cowan or Makinen found out that even the 217 horsepower of the 450 SLC was no guarantee of brisk travel, when they, together with all the other participants, had to be pulled out of a 12 km long stretch of mud by bulldozers. Even when the "Flying Finn" rolled his car over four times during the ensuing rush to make up time, this did not stop him from carrying on. Makinen's SLC certainly suffered considerable surface damage, but was still mechanically in order and able to clock up high speeds. He was rewarded at the end with an excellent fourth place. In Caracas, in Venezuela, the northernmost point of the continent, only barely a third of the rally route had been covered, but already half of all the teams which had begun the rally had dropped out. After the hot, steaming humidity of the tropics, the thin mountain air of the Andes and Cordillera Central made the drivers short of breath. Almost unrecognisable rocky paths at an attitude of 5000 maltreated the tyres and chassis of the cars which roared at full speed along the Pacific coast. It was here that some of the still remaining native heroes had to bury their hopes of successfully completing the rally. Even the competitors from France who had fought so bravely up to then gave up from exhaustion. For most of the teams for a long time there had no longer been any question of attaining a victory, their sole aim was to hold out until they got down to Tierra del Fuego and back to Buenos Aires. Even for the Mercedes teams there were unavoidable problems. The collision of Zasada's coupe with a mule was remedied without much difficulty but his fall into a construction pit had more severe consequences. A badly strained ligament in his left knee hindered his leg movement, but did not immobilise the Polish rally team. Although all the coupe teams had already declared themselves satisfied with the comfortable and competitive automatic transmission before, this now became a necessity for the continuation of Zasada's pursuit of Cowan who was in the lead. On the 24th September 1978, seven of the eight Mercedes-Benz vehicles which had started the rally reached the autodrome in Buenos Aires. They took places 1-5 and 8 and 9 - an achievement of which the drivers and maintenance staff have a right to be proud. All in all, only 22 out of 57 teams which originally started the rally managed to complete this arduous race through ten South American countries, and yet most of them would undertake another such "trip" again - in a Mercedes, of course.
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