‘It’s amazing what they do. They are working out of a normal building in a street, but making these impressive cars,’ said Fernando Alonso in Austin during the US Grand Prix when asked by Racecar Engineering about Nasser Al-Attiya’s overall victory in the FIA World Rally Raid Championship. Following that observation up with, ‘okay, the cars are run by Overdrive, but Glyn and his people are the ones building them.’
The Spaniard’s ‘they’ references Hallspeed, the Kyalami-based, Toyota Gazoo Racingsanctioned builder and purveyor of the Oval T-branded off-road Hiluxes of the type driven to victory in both this year’s WR2C and the Dakar by Al-Attiya.
Indeed, the Qatari won the South American marathon event with a similar vehicle in 2019, having placed second three times with the team, and double F1 champion, Alonso, credits him with ‘teaching me everything I know about off-road.’
The Glyn mentioned is Hallspeed founder, Glyn Hall. An ex-pat Brit, Hall (66) emigrated to South Africa in 1980 to join ace South African driver / engineer, Geoff Mortimer’s, Chev Dealer Team. Prior to that, he cut his racing teeth with Chrysler UK’s motorsport division, building Avengers and Talbot Sunbeam Lotuses for such drivers as Henri Toivonen, Guy Frequelin and co-driver Jean Todt – the latter later leading Ferrari of course before becoming FIA president.
‘I was seconded to teach Henri English. We were the same age and got on very well, Stoke-on-Trent-born Hall recalls of Toivonen, reckoned by many to have been the fastest of all Finns before his untimely 1986 death. ‘His was a pure talent…’
Finally, Overdrive is Hallspeed’s international (Belgium-based) partner, founded by Jean-Marc Fortin, former co-driver to Grégoire de Mevius, Bruno
