HAVING A RALLYING BLAST DOWN MEXICO WAY
The first event of the intercontinental rally genre had been the 1968 London-Sydney Marathon, which covered a little over 10,000 miles in 23 days. However, the World Cup Rally blasted those statistics out of the water by setting a route covering 16,000 miles in 27 days, split by a 13-day hiatus while the cars were shipped from Lisbon in Portugal to Rio de Janeiro in Brazil.
Ultimately, the works Ford Escort Mk1s dominated the rally and when Hannu Mikkola and Gunnar Palm led the cavalcade of finishers into Mexico City, a new model of sporting Ford was born in celebration.
The 1968 London-Sydney event was conceived by Sir MaxAitken of the Daily Express as a vehicle to boost the national spirit at the time of the devaluation of the pound and also act as a flagship for British engineering. It was a great success as cars from Rootes and British Leyland finished 1-2 with teams headed byAndrew Cowan and Paddy Hopkirk.
Legend has it that the concept of the World Cup Rally was
