Monte Carlo Historique 2017 in a 1970 BMW 2002ti

[Nick Moss]

I decided to do this rally over 5 years ago, and it has taken that time to build from scratch and prepare my 1970 BMW 2002ti, mostly in part time. My brother volunteered as navigator, probably the most important piece of the complete jigsaw, as although the navigation itself is not that difficult, preparing and conveying the timing information is critical to the result. Peter was competingg in his 12th RMCH so is as experienced as they come. This was my first ever serious rally, I have done a few relaxed Slowly Sideways events as navigator, once as driver, but Peter has been rallying since the 60s, initially as Chris Sclater’s navigator, who went on to become a works supported driver for Ford.

This is the story of our rally.

[Nick Moss]

The Monte Carlo Historique is a regularity or TSD (time, speed, distance) rally. Open to a specified list of pre-1980 cars and run by the Auto Club de Monaco (ACM), it is always at the end of January, which almost guarantees difficult conditions with snow and ice. The route, including the concentration runs from various cities around Europe, is around 2,350 Kms.
A regularity rally has timed sections (ZRs) which must be completed at a pre-set average speed, usually just under 50 kph. It doesn't sound difficult, but a 50 Km ZR may have 15 timing points over its length, each one should be passed at the specified second, irrelevant or road or weather conditions. The roads used are barely wider than a car and can have as many as 15 hairpins in quick succession, try that in your 911. Timing is to the second and penalties are accrued at 10 points per second out (+ or -) at each point. We don’t know where the timing points are,

[yoda]

How cool - look forward to hearing your tales Nick.

[Nick Moss]

Preparation of the car included new wiring for all the lighting and navigational equipment, a fuel system with a capacity of 85 L, giving us a range of 600 kms, ideal as we completed without service, carrying all our own spares, tools and, as it turned out 4 studded wheels as well.

[majordad]

I'm ready to read, good luck !

[Nick Moss]

Peter competed in a 911 in 2016 and I agreed to go with him to reconnoitre the route with him in the early part of January last year. We flew out to Nice and used a rental car to do cover the ZRs in the region to the north of Monte Carlo and toward Digne les Bains. This was useful education as to the style and length of the ZRs for me.





And the Col du Turini at 1607m

[Darren65]

Great thread Nick, thanks for sharing

[cubist]

More please!

[moggy]

Great. I've been looking forward to reading how you got on. More please....

Car looks great. Hope it came home looking the same

[Nick Moss]

This year we went out for 3 days recce, flying into Lyon so we could cover the 4 ZRs in the Ardeche to the west of Valence, and the 2 in Vercors, to the east of Valence. This is the area that had the most snow this years so it was a good decision to do the extra day, especially as it’s not an area that I am familiar with. We then covered the areas toward Monte on the following days.

As it turned out this was the area that came up with the most difficult conditions in the actual rally. The Col d'Echarasson in the Vercors is the only ZR that we do twice, firstly late on the second day, then again in the opposite direction early on the forth day. It's high at 1145m and almost always has snow for the rally, so our recce was a good preparation



The Fiat 500X was an excellent car, let down by the cheap and crappy winter tyres on certain surfaces. Otherwise comfortable, very economical at 45mpg from its 1.6 120 bhp diesel motor, and with enormous mid range puff in its rather narrow power band.

Just south of Digne les Bains was ZR2, Chaudon Norante. We recced in the snow, but this was mainly dry in the rally apart from a patch of ice just over the top of the Col, which caught out an Escort which blocked the stage for a time

[dragonfly]

What a great adventure, looking forward to reading more

[Nick Moss]

The rest of the recce was in the area around Digne les Bains again and then the last night ZRs from Lantosque and the Col du Turini (below).



and the same spot in 1979 with Hannu Mikkola.



We climb the Col from the west so the roads tend to be clear and dry, pop over the top onto the north facing descent and straight onto snow and ice, scary with our crappy tyres that offered zero grip on lock with any kind of braking.

[Nick Moss]

[Nick Moss]

The RMCH starts from various start cities, Glasgow, Reims, Copenhagen, Bad Homburg, Lisbon or Barcelona. Last year Peter started in Reims and I serviced for him, carrying spare wheels with studs, tools, jack and fuel in my Land Rover Discovery, ably navigated by Jon Miller (DustyM).

[Nick Moss]

We decided on a Bad Homburg start this year and planned to drive the entire route without a service back-up vehicle. However we wanted to drive on studs, which are banned in Germany, so I persuaded Paul Madden and Mike Moore to come along with us for the first part of the rally, carrying our studded wheels to fit soon after we crossed from Germany into France, then return with our unstudded wheels. Due to a mess up on my part our French legal studded (round section studs) tyres were not where I expected to have them fitted in Calais, so to reduce the risk getting caught on our illegal Scandinavian studs we decided to carry on with the winter tyres and fit the studs ourselvess when required. So we were carrying 4 wheels in the car, quite an extra weight. We also had 85L in fuel when filled up.

My thanks to Paul and Mike for their support!



We drove the 600km from Calais to Bad Homburg on the Wednesday in convoy with the Disco, arriving at the very pleasant Dorint Hotel that evening, giving us a very relaxed day to finally prepare the car with all the required decals and get it scrutineered.