9 replies to this topic

[robin2c4]

I have been researching the rallying exploits of Bertie & Ian Sutherland in the 1950s and 1960s and I've had considerable help before from members of this Forum.

I now have it from a relative of theirs, that in the early 1960s Ian was involved with the Ford Rally Team and co-drove in the RAC Rally with Graham Hill in a Ford Zephyr.

I wonder if anyone can verify this, or point me at a likely information source? Various searches of the web have failed to turn up a reliable record of past RAC Rally participants.

I'd be grateful for any help! Robin

[CoulthardD]

You'll find some of Graham Hill's RAC entries listed HERE, but none show Ian Sutherland as the co-driver.

DC

Edited by CoulthardD, 25 January 2011 - 13:16.

[Vitesse2]

Most of Graham's early 60s rallying was done in Sunbeam Rapiers, but AFAIK he usually only joined them for the Monte, not the RAC: I think he tended to take November off, before doing the Monte and/or racing in the Antipodes. His only Monte in a Ford in that period was in the Falcon team they ran in 1964, so this would tend to point to the 1959 RAC as in the link above.

According to the report in Motor Sport, Graham was a last-minute substitute for Jeff Uren, who seems to have been unwell. There are no co-drivers mentioned in the report at all, but working from a photograph Hill's car was numbered 63, again as indicated in the link above.

[Amphicar]

I remember Graham Hill taking part in the 1966 RAC Rally driving a works Mini Cooper S with Maxwell Boyd as co-driver.

[Peter Darley]

Motor Sport[/i], Graham was a last-minute substitute for Jeff Uren, who seems to have been unwell. There are no co-drivers mentioned in the report at all, but working from a photograph Hill's car was numbered 63, again as indicated in the link above.

At the televised Monte Carlo / Prescott Hill Climb in '64, GH drove Falcon No 201

[RS2000]

The 59 entry list I have shows:
"63 Jeff Uren (or Graham Hill?)/Ian Sutherland"
59 was the last "road" (non-special stage) RAC.

As already posted above, NGH did the 66 RAC in a works Group 2 Cooper S with journalist Maxwell Boyd and stripped a tooth off the diff - and out through the casing - on Porlock before retiring (much to his contentment, allegedly). Someone I know encountered them off route near Puddletown Forest (SS4). Maxwell Boyd was a fairly experienced navigator so I don't quite know what was going on. Having been sent the correct way, NGH departed with: "you're a gentleman sir!".
He was also entered in the cancelled 1967 RAC in a works Group 5 Mk2 Lotus Cortina. I guess this was another reluctant appearance, brought about by Ford paying for him at Team Lotus and thus having a say in what he did and with the far more enthusiastic Jim Clark tax-exiled for too many days in 67 to take part in the RAC.

Edited by RS2000, 25 January 2011 - 16:21.

[Pete Stowe]

According to the report in Motor Sport, Graham was a last-minute substitute for Jeff Uren, who seems to have been unwell. There are no co-drivers mentioned in the report at all, but working from a photograph Hill's car was numbered 63, again as indicated in the link above.

The entry list for 1959 published in Autosport had: no. 63 JM Uren/I Sutherland, Ford Zephyr.
The provisional results in Autosport had: 49th G Hill/Sutherland (Zephyr) on 1,005 points.

[alfredaustria]

The entrylist of the RAC-rallye 1958 shows Graham Hill with Austin A 105 (st.nr 141) with co-driver Tony Coakley.

[Rupertlt1]

Motor Sport, Dec, 1959 says:

"Graham Hill was a surprise arrival by train from London. Jeff Uren having decided that he could do better for himself and his team if he stood down and looked after the Fords, letting Hill drive in his place."

 

#63 is here:

 

https://revslib.stan...log/rc592hw3418

 

https://revslib.stan...log/wn470mp9436

 

https://revslib.stan...log/rv649vv6242

 

https://revslib.stan...log/fr897km4956

 

RGDS RLT

[AAGR]

I can confirm that Graham Hill was much keener on doing the RAC rally in a Lotus-Cortina in 1967 than in a Mini-Cooper S in 1966. At a pre-rally test day on the rough-road tracks at Bagshot, I was present, and watched NGH circulating remarkably fast in a 'works' Lotus-Cortina - until suddenly he did not re-appear.

  Minutes later, as I recall, he strolled back into the service area and announced, with a big grin, that he had had to abandon the car because he could no longer turn the steering wheel. It was only when the mechanics retrieved the car that they discovered that this was because the car had been rolled, the roof/front end structure had collapsed, and the wheel was jammed by the roof ....

 

  In 1967 his co-driver, by the way, was to have been David Seigle-Morris, a successful rally driver of the 1960s who had recently retired as a Ford 'works' driver.

Edited by AAGR, 12 January 2016 - 11:19.