Willy Cave - A Tale of Two Rallies
Just before the start of the 1955 Monte Carlo Rally. Will Cave third from left wearing the bobble hat. Photo:- Z Register Archives
1955 - My First
International
The idea was this: for the 1955 Monte Carlo Rally two BMC teams of three
team cars would run together, each with a driver and co-driver, and the leading
car would carry a third crew member who would be a specialist navigator. This
master navigator would devote himself to any major problems that arose during
the rally and would work out the course to be followed for all three cars.
So I came to be invited to join Reg Holt and Alan Collinson in the team-leading
ZA Magnette in the 1955 Monte Carlo Rally. But when the entry list was
published, all the teams were broken up. Len Shaw drew number 36, Geoff Holt got
49, and we were far behind at 58. So the master navigator idea was out and each
crew had to do its own route finding.
That was by no means the only mistake in the project, but there was nobody
available to teach us the business of international rallies at that time. In
1954, the newly formed British Motor Corporation decided to enter international
rallying. For this new venture both Austin and the Nuffield Group would enter
three cars. The two teams were entirely separate, the former operating from
Longbridge and the latter from the MG works at Abingdon-on-Thames. The Nuffield
Group chose the Magnette - a sporty saloon that proudly carried the motto
'Safety Fast!', an eminently suitable slogan for winning the Monte. If the car
seemed an obvious choice, finding the crews was more of a problem.
In 1954, there were few factory-entered rally teams but most drivers were
already signed up for the Monte. The M.G. factory turned to the M.G. Car Club,
and selected three successful drivers from the North-West Centre, all operating
around the Manchester area.
Frequent club events allowed drivers to experience much winter driving over the
snowbound Pennines, thereby stimulating the will to win and gaining familiarity
with the car. So the teams were chosen and Glasgow was the chosen start point.
At the factory the mechanics fitted second spare wheels and two spare tins of
petrol in the boot of each car. A set of chains, de-ditching gear and a good box
of tools taken together with three people and luggage meant the Magnette was a
full one-and-a-half times its design weight. The power of the ZA engine was
about 60 bhp which had to move about 30 cwt.
The cars reached Manchester from Abingdon the day before we were due to leave
for Glasgow. I hurried out to Reg Holt's house to get my first ride in a 'works'
car. This journey should have been something like a first flight on a magic
carpet. But instead of floating on a magic carpet, the car felt strange,
sluggish and awkwardly unmanageable. It was for me the first of many miserable
meetings with rally cars where reality had somehow proved a ghastly
disappointment after the pleasures of enthusiastic anticipation.
The next morning we left for Glasgow, the three maroon MG.s trying to keep in
line astern, picking their way over the alternately snow packed and slushy A6. I
was wedged in a corner of the back seat, surrounded by piles of auxiliary gear.
A rubber pipe theoretically carried some air from the heater to my feet at the
back but my feet soon froze in their boots. Just a degree of warmth could be
felt by putting the end of the pipe actually into the bottom of a trouser leg.
The Trio of Magnettes taken on on the preliminary sortie to the 1955 Monte Carlo Rally. Reg Holt with Collinson and Cave by KJB 910. Photo:- Z Register Archives.
On Sunday in
Glasgow snow was blowing around and there were reports of snow falling all over
Europe. The town was thick with stories of the difficulties crews had
experienced trying to get to the start. At the local Nuffield distributors we
practised changing wheels and fitting chains to the wheels both on and off the
car. The performance was not exactly impressive, but it was good to be doing
something constructive. The rally plates and numbers were put on the cars. A
second set of chains was added to each boot load.
The next day we picked our way through a crowd already hundreds strong to the
other 90 cars at the start in Blytheswood Square. Crew members checked and
re-checked the bits and pieces. Well-wishers handed us little packets of barley
sugar as the cars edged up to the start. At the Royal Scottish Automobile Club A
K Stevenson waved the St Andrew's flag for us to go. Mounted policemen nudged a
way between the onlookers and soon we were swallowed up in the dark busy
streets.
Once out of Glasgow hard snow presented a rutted icy surface, but clear patches
made it useless to put on our chains. Reg was finding it difficult to control
the heavy ungainly MG at more than 30 mph and we were slowly slipping back
behind the set average. Several people were coming by us going rather well. I
crouched in the back trying to keep my feet from freezing, and trying not to
notice how badly we were doing. On the other hand, we did pass a Sunbeam, well
off the road and rather bashed.
We eventually reached the passage control at Stranraer. We were three-quarters
of an hour behind schedule. However, it is a long way to Doncaster where the
first time control was situated and we began to make up time along the Solway
Firth.
As the night wore on the little groups of cheering enthusiasts grew thinner.
Many people displayed Good Luck signs, but luck deserted several entries. Peter
Bolton and Tommy Sopwith crashed into a telegraph pole outside Stamford and the
straggle of cars that reached London before daybreak was half-a-dozen short.
It was a fine sunny morning as we reached Dover. With 18 hours and some 900 kms
behind them, the cars were gratefully parked aboard the Channel ferry. The
drivers dropped quickly on to the nearest bunks and fell asleep to the steady
throb of the ship's engines and the gentle rise and fall of the Channel swell.
In Boulogne there was an hour to wait at the Gare Maritime, where the Mayor laid
on a champagne reception. Both Ian Mackenzie and I were on the next shift to
sleep, so we took full advantage of the hospitality, while the duty men
sorrowfully had to decline. As soon as the gendarmes' whistles blew to set us on
our way I was soundly asleep, oblivious to the rumble of the pave and the
occasional frozen patch on the road.
Two hours later, the last of the evening light now gone, we checked in at the
Lille passage control. At the Belgian frontier, I took over in the driving seat
and headed for Brussels. The local M.G. Car Club people were waiting for us on
the outskirts and their pilot car led us straight across to the Liège road.
Throughout this second night we completed the loop of the Low Countries. North
first to cross the Rhine by the Nijmegen bridge and thus to Arnhem, and on to a
stretch of Dutch motorway - the first time I had ever been on a motorway. At
Amsterdam the car was rapidly greased and serviced by the Van den Mark garage,
the Nuffield distributors for the Netherlands.
It dawned fine again as we crossed back into Belgium, and there was time for a
breakfast snack at the Brussels control before we set off for Reims. The roads
were clear, the going good. We arrived in the champagne capital with an hour to
spare, which gave the Magnette crews time to lunch together and the off-duty men
to succumb once again to free champagne. As we took our leave for Paris, the
first of the Monte Carlo and Lisbon starters were approaching the town. The vast
rally convoy now took almost five hours to pass.
We romped into Paris to a great blaring of horns and blowing of whistles. The
traffic drove as if everyone was not just in a rally, but a road race. Our poor
Magnette could scarcely keep up. The Arc de Triomphe loomed ahead and welcoming
officials parked us in the Place de l'Etoile, where a notice board declared
floods ahead and trouble in store. The road to Troyes was blocked and traffic at
a standstill. Everybody was consulting anxiously the next maps. Local experts
were everywhere, offering free advice in broken English. I realised that the
moment for the master navigator was at hand.
"Inondations! Attention!" screamed the yellow notice on the road to Troyes,
which went straight on between the long lines of trees outlined in the
headlamps. We exchanged anxious glances. At least we had built up a little time
in hand. Dimly through the side windows I saw reflections of ominous sheets of
water on either side. Soon water appeared on the edges of the road and I marked
the next available turning. But as we reached it a car came towards us - it
could mean the road was passable. We carried straight on. The lapping waters
closed and met, but the depth was only an inch or two, and soon the water fell
away again. Three times this happened, three times we got safely through, and
three times my luck held.
I was rewarded with a couple of hours in the driving seat as we finally turned
due south and headed for the Mediterranean. Our car had given no new trouble, we
were without penalty and there were only another twelve hours to go, but the
mountains were ahead and we were tired. I drove until Bourg, where we changed
round and I had another hour of sleep.
When I woke we were coming to another point of decision. There were three
possible routes to Chambery - the more direct they were, the more tricky they
looked. We took the shortest, twisting now into the foothills of the Alps; the
road clear but icy, narrow and slow. Presently the car was skidding wildly,
beyond all reason. We stopped and found the left back tyre was flat. Three stiff
and weary men struggled in the cold darkness to make the jack work and fit one
of the spares. On our way again at last, the car seemed to handle rather worse,
as if it did not like the new tyre tread, and as we laboured slowly up to the
tunnel at the top of the Col du Chat all our optimism drained away. But we got
down to Chambery on time and the straight main roads welcomed and cheered us
again.
The tyre marks on the road were more obvious from Chambery onwards for the
survivors from Athens to Palermo had now joined in and taken their station at
the front of the six-hour long moving queue. Everyone was now on the common
route; our own slot was just under an hour from the front and with perhaps forty
surviving cars ahead.
We roared through Grenoble, the street lamps sparkling in the frost and showing
us the first flurries of falling snow and on to Vizille, bent on building up
time for the hills ahead.
In Chambery we had been handed the precious pink slip with the details of the
Classification Test. I turned my attention now to its message:
"GAP-MONACO. This itinerary has been chosen because of the difficulties it
presents even in fine weather. According to the weather conditions during this
period of snow, ice and even landslides, these difficulties may suddenly
increase and render most arduous certain stretches over passes and through
gorges. We therefore recommend the greatest caution and would also draw your
attention to the fact that in the mountains and going through the villages
competitors may be hindered by herds of cattle being moved and the parking of
agricultural machinery, etc."
The road was now completely snow-covered and our average dropped below the set
speed. Slowly the time we had built up began to slip away. Suddenly we were
aware of the dreaded red glow of many tail lights ahead. Cars were slipping and
failing to climb a steep incline. We stopped too and tumbled out to push, shove
and coax the Magnette. People were fitting chains, letting air out of their
tyres, pushing and levering. Eventually our chance came and Alan Colinson, who
was nearest the wheel, leapt in and got on the move again. We reached the top of
the Col Bayard and began a slow descent to Gap. Everyone was tight for time and
many immediately raced away on the downhill, only to discover too late that the
surface was like a skating rink. Cars were going off the road in all directions.
I remember, in my terror, recognising a Zephyr, a Jaguar 120 Coupé and Gregor
Grant's Magnette. It was the most expensive five kilometres of the rally, but we
scraped safely past the cars' graveyard and into Gap.
We managed to refuel and began to dither about whether to fit chains. The roads
in Gap were clear and everywhere crews were having the same argument, but our
time was up.
For a few kilometres all was well. But as soon as we began to climb, the speed
dropped back and the car slipped all over the place. Down into the next valley,
briefly along the bottom and then off and up again. This time the increasing
daylight showed there were dizzy drops on the right hand side and no retaining
wall of any sort. I think we were all terrified and there were murmurs about
slowing down. I had certainly never been on such a frightening road, not in full
daylight, not in summer, not even at a touring speed. But we were losing time
rapidly.
Halfway up the Col St Jean, which was only the first of three 4,000 ft passes on
this stage, we were again on deep packed snow, with a polished ice surface. In
Seynes-les-Alpes we could stand it no more, and by now, unless our speed was
substantially increased, there was no point in continuing. Several cars with
chains fitted had already clanked by us and their advice was obvious. Crouching
and lying in the slush, we fitted our chains.
At La Javie, where the first special stage ended and the next immediately began,
Reg stamped the card and handed it to me to make the calculations. And though I
did not realise it then, our time meant exclusion by more than six minutes.
Working it out later, I realised we had averaged 29 mph, which would not have
cost us many penalties in any British rally, but was fatal on the Monte. Still,
we were still unbent and we carried on round the other special stages, oblivious
of our exclusion, but no longer hoping to do well.
On the long final descent, the long journey's cold began to ebb out of the metal
of the Magnette. The blue sky opened wide enough to show the sun. Eucalyptus and
yellow mimosa grew beside the road. We soon got ahead of schedule on the last
straights beside the sparkling Var and pulled up to lose some time and
straighten out the tangled mess inside the car.
The final control was at the Monaco frontier. We checked the car automatically
for the technical inspection, signed the form declaring we had not had an
accident and parked the car.
By the time we got to the Metropole Hotel I was shivering and nursing the
biggest headache of all time. The bar was crowded with hearty British
competitors making a remarkable recovery. I confessed my ills to Reg Phillips,
who bought me a strange, revolting quinine drink called Amer Picon; with that I
retired to bed and did not wake until the next day.
On Saturday, the best 100 cars took part in the 325 km mountain circuit test.
None of the Magnettes and only one of the Austins qualified. The following
morning the very tired survivors turned out to race five laps round the Grand
Prix circuit. Whilst the rain fell steadily outside, I watched the racing from
my bed. The cars came into my view around the Café de Paris, down the short
straight past the nightclubs, into the long right-hander and out of sight round
the Station hairpin. Not a bad grandstand at all.
Eventually the last car slid round the last corner to the chequered flag; an
unnatural quiet descended on the town and the 25th Monte Carlo Rally was over.
The winner; a privately-entered Sunbeam with a Norwegian crew that beat the
works cars. Best British entry, Gerry Burgess, in a private Zephyr, came fourth;
Jaguars with Ronnie Adams, Cecil Ward and Ian Appleyard took the team prize and
the Ladies Cup went to Sheila Van Damm and Anne Hall in their Sunbeam. The best
Magnette was Geoff Holt, classified at 178th, with Len Shaw 202nd, and us at
237th.
It was some comfort to find that people who did well were mostly those of whom
one had often heard before. Experience and ability counted. I resolved to seek
both in the future.
Our thanks to 'Old Stager' for their permission to reproduce this edited version
of Willy Cave's longer article first published in 1997.
In Between Times……
Willy Cave was ultimately highly successful in his quest for more experience and
honours. He won an Alpine Cup in 1956 with Paddy Hopkirk in a TR3 and achieved
3rd, 4th and 6th places in the RAC Rally with a variety of drivers. His last
'modern' rally was the 1969 Monte Carlo with Peter Jopp in an Abingdon prepared
Austin 1800 when they won the 'Best All-British Entry' award.
Classic rallying began some 22 years later, and Willy has been active on the
scene from the start. In 1991 he navigated John Sprinzel to 2nd in class in the
Pirelli Marathon, while other honours include 3rd overall in the 6th Monte Carlo
Challenge in a Volvo Amazon with Mike Corns, and 2nd overall and 1st in class in
the Targa Espana with Mike Cornwell in a Porsche 356. And so, on to 2005……..
2005 The
Winter Trial
In 2005 Mike Cornwell and Willy Cave decided that something should be done to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Willy's appearance on the international rallying scene. They needed a Magnette, and a suitable car had to be found. They settled upon KUX 460, a very original 1954 'tin top' ZA, and entered it for the 2005 Winter Challenge, a gruelling 5 day event starting in Maastricht in the Netherlands and running through the Alps to Monte Carlo. The car was pulled apart and reassembled in rally trim. Only limited modifications are allowed so the running gear was left pretty standard but period rally mods were incorporated - the fitting of a Halda and extra 'clocks', rally seats, better spot lights and so on.
Mike & Willy's 'office'
Henk and Willy deep in thought
Arriving in a
chilly Maastricht on 6 February for the start, Mike and Willy were greeted by
Register members Günter Graskamp and Henk Kroese who not only interviewed the
pair but also nobly assisted in the final fettling of the brakes - Mike, being
mainly a Porsche man, welcomed some assistance on the rather
agricultural Abingdon set-up.
GG: Have you and Mike rallied together before?
WC: I do a lot of rallying with Mike as driver, but we mainly use a Porsche 356.
I started navigating again several years ago when classic rallies came up
GG: How did you come to be accepted for the BMC team in 1955?
WC: I was chosen when BMC decided a third person was needed in one of the team
cars
GG: How did they hear of you - had you been a professional navigator?
WC: No, I was working for the BBC, but I did a lot of club rallies. I've always
been an amateur except in 1956 when I worked for Standard Triumph.
GG: Is there a secret to becoming a good navigator?
WC: My secret is to keep calm. Check everything: where is the river, did we pass
the railway crossing, is there a church, is the direction correct, where is the
sun, look at the compass……and then check again before we leave for the next
control.
GG: What are your memories of the rally 50 years ago?
WC: I don't have good memories about that. The cars were too heavy and
underpowered. We had luggage for three, spare wheels, two sets of snow chains, a
heavy jack…..
GG: With these bad memories in mind, what is your impression sitting in a
Magnette 50 years later?
WC: This rally is really something special for me, though I can't remember the
original Magnette in detail.
GG: May I ask how old you are now?
WC: I'm 78
After this Gunter and Henk presented Willy Cave with a Register sweat shirt and
left him to study the route maps - to check and recheck!
Alas, Willy's navigational skills were to no avail. Early on in the rally the
Magnette lost a lot of time thanks to a faulty fuel pump, and they were never
able to make this up, eventually retiring on the last stage. A sad end, but
Willy remains indefatigable: less than a month later he was again in the left
hand seat in the Alps, this time in a Mini Cooper, and he shows no sign of
slowing down - a true 'Old Stager'!
Feb 2005 - Ready for the Off
Read more about the car. How it was prepared and restored.
