For more than a quarter of a century, the Moran name has been at the forefront of British hillclimbing.
It was in 1997, that Roger won the coveted title in his Pilbeam MP72 and he was the last Pilbeam-mounted driver to win the overall title. For 2005, the Morans switched to a Gould GR61 and Roger’s son Scott then took a remarkable run of six titles in nine years. In 2015, Alex Summers shared the Nicholson-McLaren-engined GR61 with Scott and gave it a seventh BHC title.
This year, once more, Scott will be one of the top five contenders in the championship in the Gould GR59 he shares with Graham Wynn. Meanwhile, Roger is still busy competing and will take in a mix of events including rallying his Ford Escort Mk2 and Skoda Fabia R5 and hillclimbing his latest project, a Lotus Exige.
They are huge advocates for the sport of hillclimbing, and tremendously popular figures around the paddock.
The Ludlow-based father-and-son pair took time out of their schedules to sit down and answer some questions posed by Motorsport News.
Question: Roger, you must have started in motorsport when you were quite young. When did you first compete?
Steve Green
Via email
Roger Moran: “I did my first rally in 1971. I must have been 19 because I was born in 1952. For some reason we left a disco that we used to go to on weekends and a group of us lads went to watch the Welsh Marches Rally. It was a round of the Motoring News Rally Championship and it was snowing. I was just hooked on it from then and that was it.
“I did a lot of club road rallying through the 1970s in the Motoring News and the Welsh championships. Then they changed all the regulations and we couldn’t have four carburettor chokes and decent tyres. That did it for me and that was about 1984.”
MN: Did you do any forest rallies?
RM: “I did try a few forest events but I didn’t enjoy it because of the damage on the car. Some forest events were really great, but I didn’t do many. They were all very different and I remember the Woodpecker, which runs close to where I live, was fantastic and I did that a couple of times. It used really good roads but then some of the ones you did it was like driving on bricks. Then I tried a few events in Ireland and I only did about four or five of those. They were the best events but even back then it was the cost and time of getting there. Even in 1981 or ’82 it was a £1500 round trip to Ireland which was a lot of money. I started the motorhome business in 1979.”
Question: How did you get into hillclimbing?
Phil Jackson
Via email
“A friend of mine, Bill Morgan, was a very
