Duncan’s Mustang a big draw

Ian Duncan’s Ford Mustang is expected to be the centre of attraction when cars are presented for inspection to the technical officer of the Kenya Airways East African Safari Classic Rally on Friday.

While the rest of the rally cars seem identical in looks and power of the engine, Duncan’s Mustang is unique in its features with huge body and typical sound of a rally car that has attracted plenty of attention in the events it has showed up. 

The Ford is powered by 5600cc-engine and able to produce 400bhp at full throttle. It is a rear-wheel-drive with a four-speed transmission.

German Karl-Heinz Goldstein, the former Toyota Team Europe chief engineer and a person with ample experience of the Safari Rally will be the technical officer in charge of inspecting the machines prior to the start of the Classic Rally.

The German is a highly respected engineer having worked for some of best “works’ team to have taken part in the Safari Rally when it was regarded as of the toughest events in the World Motor Sports calendar.

He was the chief engineer and designer for the Opel Ascona and Manta 400’s, Toyota Celica rally cars and VW Golf’s before retiring from the job.

Renowned drivers

His Safari Rally experience also includes work with renowned drivers like Rauno Altonnen, Bjorn Waldegaard, Juha Kankkunen, Stiq Blomqvist, Erwin Weber, Walter Rohrl and Kenneth Ericsson among other world super stars.

Goldstein has been present during all editions of the Classic Safari Rally in different capacities since it was first run in 2003. This year he will once again be part of the senior management team as the Chief Scrutineer.

Cars from the olden day East African Safari Rally, now classified as Historic cars will be on show at the Whitesands Hotel. Datsuns lead the list with 18 cars followed by Porsche 911 (10), Fords (9), Mercedes (2) Colt Lancer (1) and Renault (1).

Eligible cars are those off passenger models built before December 31st, 1974. Vehicles with more than six seats are not allowed and also forbidden are commercial vehicles such as the SUVs, four-wheel drive or any vehicle with either turbocharger or super-charger.

In the wake of the ever-more advanced rally cars of the twenty-first century comes the trend towards historic rallying (also known as classic rallying in which older cars compete under older style rally rules. This is a popular sport and even attracts some of the drivers of the twentieth century back into the driving seat.