ORX 77F
Posted: Fri Jul 31, 2020 4:09 pm
by worksminis » 21 Mar 2017, 11:25
“Simply the best”?
Monte Carlo Rally January 68. Makinen/ Easter. Group2. Severe overheating (loose crank pulley). Started final section but immediately retired.
Rally of the Flowers February 68. Aaltonen/Liddon. Group2.
Then sold to “J. Grundy” (G. Grundy?) according to Browning.
Price, meanwhile, wrote that Makinen last drove for Abingdon on the Acropolis Rally in May but then lists in the Appendix a 2 car entry for the 1000 Lakes in August. Robson in his much later book takes delight in spelling out these errors/omissions by 2 “eminent historians”.
What is particularly amazing about this is that Browning is featured doing a “piece to camera” in Jyvaskyla before the start of the 1000 Lakes in the Castrol film “The Flying Finns”. In this he states that Makinen had just told him that his car was the best that Abingdon had ever prepared for him.
In the Appendix of his book (which conflicts with his narrative) Price lists:
Rally of the 1000 Lakes August 68. Makinen/Keskitalo, ORX77F.
He also lists ORX777F as driven by Lusenius but the crew was actually Ytterbring/Persson. Makinen was known to have always demanded a dry car for the 1000 Lakes. This may not have suited BMC marketing but it was FIA legal up to the end of 1965. After 1.1.66. under the new Appendix J it was not. (the S was only homologated as hydrolastic until a dry “option” was homologated again on 1.4.70.). There is circumstantial evidence to suggest Makinen's 66 and 67 1000 Lakes cars were also dry. Was ORX77F on the 68 1000 Lakes dry? Is that why, with its splits and 648 cam in Group 2, it was “the best ever”? On Monte Carlo and the equally regulation obsessed Flowers, ORX77F was surely fully-legal hydrolastic. In Finland with Makinen on his last Mini drive, would anyone have dared challenge it?
What was the suspension when it was eventually sold to Geoff Grundy?
Grundy used the car on several Motoring News Championship rallies and a record of these will follow, courtesy of Peter Robinson's “Memory Lanes” book.
“Simply the best”?
Monte Carlo Rally January 68. Makinen/ Easter. Group2. Severe overheating (loose crank pulley). Started final section but immediately retired.
Rally of the Flowers February 68. Aaltonen/Liddon. Group2.
Then sold to “J. Grundy” (G. Grundy?) according to Browning.
Price, meanwhile, wrote that Makinen last drove for Abingdon on the Acropolis Rally in May but then lists in the Appendix a 2 car entry for the 1000 Lakes in August. Robson in his much later book takes delight in spelling out these errors/omissions by 2 “eminent historians”.
What is particularly amazing about this is that Browning is featured doing a “piece to camera” in Jyvaskyla before the start of the 1000 Lakes in the Castrol film “The Flying Finns”. In this he states that Makinen had just told him that his car was the best that Abingdon had ever prepared for him.
In the Appendix of his book (which conflicts with his narrative) Price lists:
Rally of the 1000 Lakes August 68. Makinen/Keskitalo, ORX77F.
He also lists ORX777F as driven by Lusenius but the crew was actually Ytterbring/Persson. Makinen was known to have always demanded a dry car for the 1000 Lakes. This may not have suited BMC marketing but it was FIA legal up to the end of 1965. After 1.1.66. under the new Appendix J it was not. (the S was only homologated as hydrolastic until a dry “option” was homologated again on 1.4.70.). There is circumstantial evidence to suggest Makinen's 66 and 67 1000 Lakes cars were also dry. Was ORX77F on the 68 1000 Lakes dry? Is that why, with its splits and 648 cam in Group 2, it was “the best ever”? On Monte Carlo and the equally regulation obsessed Flowers, ORX77F was surely fully-legal hydrolastic. In Finland with Makinen on his last Mini drive, would anyone have dared challenge it?
What was the suspension when it was eventually sold to Geoff Grundy?
Grundy used the car on several Motoring News Championship rallies and a record of these will follow, courtesy of Peter Robinson's “Memory Lanes” book.
