1980 RAC Lombard Rally Plate No “19” *SOLD*

Description

• No19 was on a Group 4 Ford Escort RS 1800
• It competed in the RAC Rally finishing sixth overall
• Vehicle built and prepared by David Sutton Motorsport
• A very rare piece of British motorsport history
• First time to market
• From a small private collection

This plate is a little bit special. It comes from a time when many us sat glued to our TV’s on a Saturday afternoon watching Grandstand on the BBC or ITV’s World of Sport. No Sky or interweb back then.

We would have all been transfixed by the great Murray Walker as he illuminated our homes with his commentary on drivers such as Jimmy McRae, Ari Vattenan, Stig Blomqvist and Roger Clark.

In keeping with those great names were great cars. Toyota Celica, Lotus Sunbeam, Vauxhall Firenza, Triumph TR8, Lancia Stratos. Every one of them hurtling on and off road handled with incredible skill we could only dream about.

No19 was attached to a car built, prepared and maintained by the world renowned David Sutton Motorsport; an Ford Escort RS1800 driven by Timo Mäkinen and his co-driver Martin Holmes. They finished sixth overall that year.

Such is the car and No19’s legendary status there was a detailed scale model struck in it’s honour. We all had it on our Christmas wish list.

After the 1980 rally, our vendor purchased No19. He has cherished it ever since. This has never before come to market.

With the wonders of modern technology, we are able to verify the provenance of No19. You can be transported back to an amazing period of British motoring history, that car, those drivers, that commentary. If you’re lucky enough to be the winning bidder you can have a real, actual piece of history with No19.

Very rarely do items of memorabilia like this come to public auction.

The vendor has been extremely reasonable with his reserve on this marvellous memorabilia. We expect the winning bid to fall in the region of £800-1,500. Which we think is an incredible bargain.

Links to video and media:

• CERVH – History of rallying (rallyeshistoricos.es) A clip of the start of the Rally at Bath. A tremendous look back at history with some mind blowing cars. EUC 958V can be seen at around 4.00mns in.
• 1980 Lombard RAC Rally – YouTube Another clip of the various stages where No19 can be seen. Pay attention at about 1.16secs where EUC 958V narrowly avoids a spectator!
• Lombard RAC Rally 1980, won by Henri Toivonen on Talbot Subeam Lotus – YouTube A clip of EUC 958V in action. A lovely sideways clip features No19 at around 3.40secs
• Final results Lombard RAC Rally 1980 A screen grab from World Rally Championship database, which evidences No19 finishing Sixth overall.
• Ford Escort RS 1800 MKII  A link to WRC Models, displaying No19

 

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