Monte Carlo or Bust

The last-minute tinkering and tuning had been done. The standard stock cars--among them British Allards and Sunbeam Talbots, French Simcas and Citroens, Italian Lancias and Alfa Romeos--were as ready as they would ever be. At a series of watch-tick signals, 328 grim-faced drivers from 18 nations set out from such widely scattered starting points as Lisbon, Palermo, Oslo, Glasgow, Munich, Stockholm. Their goal, some 3,300 roundabout kilometers (2,000 miles) away: Monte Carlo --and a million francs (about $3,000) first prize.

The annual (since 1911) Monte Carlo Rally, which ended last week, is not the world's longest or fastest race, but is certainly one of the most exacting ever devised for man or machine. At the finish, some 72 grinding hours later, only 16 of the mud-spattered cars crossed the line unpenalized by some form of delay, breakdown or accident, or for missing the deadline at one of the obligatory checkpoints along the route.

And Sudden Death. Bad luck, bad weather and just plain fatigue dogged the competitors from start to finish. French favorite Michel Collange was just one kilometer short of the finish line when the brakes of his Simca coupe jammed tight. Just outside Mons, Belgium, Swiss Veteran Willy Berger apparently fell asleep at the wheel, smashed his Citroen into a parked truck, was killed instantly. His companion driver, Andre Hotz, was hauled off to the hospital where he later died.

Other drivers, crossing natural and national frontiers, had less hair-raising or unhappy tales to tell. But most had delays and troubles. The Stockholm starters, who had to cross over on the ferry from Haelsingborg, got bogged down when a French gendarme sent them on a 30-kilometer detour. The Palermo starters, who ran into the toughest driving of all, had to ferry across the Strait of Messina and take a railroad flatcar ride through the Simplon Tunnel. They also hit fog at Florence and sleet at Milan. Though the Italians got a special dispensation to exceed the rally's maximum 65-kilometer-per-hour average speed (because of time lost at the Simplon Tunnel), they still had trouble with blinding snow along the French stretch from Le Puy to Valence.

Ups & Downs. The Glasgow starters, after crossing the Channel by ferry from Folkestone, had better weather luck. British Motorcar Manufacturer Sidney Allard, along with Veteran Driver Guy Warburton, made good enough time to stop for two warm meals: steak and chips at Liege, bacon and eggs at Amsterdam. They hit the swirling snow between Le Puy and Valence soon after plows had cleared the way. They also passed a stalled Allard driven by Allard's wife Eleanor, in the race with her two sisters. Shouted Allard: "Are you all right?" Shouted Mrs. Allard: "No!" This bit of information prompted Allard to step on the gas, since he was late for the next checkpoint.

Leaving his wife in the lurch paid off. She finally arrived in good spirits, and Allard's car was one of the 16 unpenalized ones which qualified, along with 32 others, for the final test: the ups & downs of the 74-kilometer course outside Monte Carlo. The Allard, powered by a Ford motor, came through with flying colors--and a buckled fender after it skidded into a stone parapet. But it won, the first time for a British car since Donald M. Healey drove a now extinct Invicta to victory 21 years ago. It was quite a day for the British. A Sunbeam Talbot beat out a French Simca for second; British Jaguars and a Jupiter won the next three places.

Manufacturer Allard, who turns out about five cars a week, sending one-third of them to the U.S. sport-car market, was delighted with the victory, but he had one beef: "If the government would reduce the purchase tax, I could sell a lot more of them." Cost of an Allard in the U.S.: some $4,500.

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