The public relations person who organised this photo should find another line of work. It’s hard to imagine a more ridiculous pose for the two young ladies perched on the roof of a 1960 Saab 96 rallye car, one with a steering wheel in hand, the other with a map. Nicolina Hubert and Anna Sorensson are serious rallye drivers currently participating in the 19th running of La Carrera Panamericana, once one of the toughest (and most dangerous) open road races in the world. Today it is an historic rallye event, still long and arduous but limited to vintage cars and run at saner speeds. The 46-year-old Saab 96 features front-wheel-drive and a three-cylinder engine derived from a German DKW. In touring form it was a mere 850 cc’s with 38 hp; modified for rallying it was bored out to 1000 c.c.’s and produced 90 hp. In an 1800 pound car that was plenty of motivation, for the Saab won the Monte Carlo Rallye outright in 1962 and 1963, with the great Eric Carlsson driving.
November 10th, 2006
Winner: Worst PR Photo of the Year
by admin | Posted in Rally/Retro-Rally | 1 Comment » |
1 Comment »
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I’ll have you know that I owned one of them back when I lived in Germany. However in my case it was unfortunately not the Rallye model. It was simply a very tired, old 93 that happened also to be cursed with a column mounted 3-spd manual transmission. But it was my intro to the wonders of front wheel drive.
– Thanks, brother. I never owned a Saab but had a chance to try a rallye car when I was editor of Canada Track & Traffic. By then I was accustomed to FWD (with the Mini).
Philip
November 11, 2006 @ 10:55 pm