It was around mid-september that I had an e-mail from Florida restorer, Gary Kempton, asking if I had any photos of the Waldegård/Helmer 911ST on the 1971 East African Safari rally. Gary had acquired this unique car and wanted any data that would allow him and his super-skilled restoration team to rebuild the car exactly as it had competed in what was then the world's most grueling rally. And when we say exactly, we do mean exactly.
GK Restorations has made its name preparing stunning early Porsches that have won concours competitions for their owners around the globe. The mindset within Gary's ever-busy workshops is that they are working with automobile art and that, as such, no detail is too small and no finish too difficult to reproduce.
What I didn't appreciate as I dug deep into my own photo archives back in September was that, although Gary had just bought the car, he wanted to have it finished - not only to show at the (early) November Rennsport Reunion, but he wanted it to be ready for Mr. Waldegård himself to give it an airing around Daytona's hallowed asphalt.
After a non-stop six-week restoration, that for his expert team must have been like living the automobile equivalent of 'Big Brother', they did it. When Waldegård saw the car, it was as if the clock had been turned back 36 years - and it received the kind of shakedown that made everybody turn and look. Gary, who experienced the ride of a lifetime beside the master, couldn't stop grinning for the rest of the weekend.
The 1971 East African Safari was something of a pioneering event for the factory Porsche team. After a strong run in earlier events that year, Porsche found itself in with a shout to win the still-new International Rally Championship of Makes against the might of Ford. Not wishing to pass up such a chance, three cars were entered in the Safari - now adopted into the new world championship. Team leader Waldegård (twice winner of the Monte Carlo Rally in 1969 and 1970), fellow Swede Ake Andersson and Polish driver Sobieslaw Zasada would drive the cars.
The well-known photographer of the time, Julius Weitman, once said that the near 4000-mile Safari 'remains one of the world's greatest motoring adventures, in which fortune does not always favour the fastest'. It was an astute comment, and suggested where Porsche would have to put its priorities for the event. Pace and durability held the keys to success.
The 911s were managed from the Sports/Press department in Zuffenhausen and prepared by the Repair workshops under the technical supervision of Jürgen Barth (all the race preparation resources at that time were devoted to the g08s and 917S).
Talk to Jürgen about the early Safari years, and it's obvious that the veteran Porsche motorsport personality has many happy memories of Porsche's African adventures. Zasada had entered the event privately from 1969, and Barth supported those first freelance adventures. While other teams had huge support teams along the route, Barth and just one mechanic struggled to keep up in a VW Combi and a Beetle - bought from the main dealer in Nairobi before the event.
'It was cheaper than renting them: he says with a grin. 'I drove the Beetle behind Zasada all the way, and that was after we had to change its engine! We had some spares for the 911, but not many. You couldn't change much. We had front and rear suspensions, some engine pieces and, of course, shock absorbers, and I remember we ran out of tyres for the service cars. We blew all the local tyres and we had to use the 911's special rally tyres on them!'
Barth received early approval for a factory entry in 1971. Three cars were prepared, along with two further private entries. As well as eight service vehicles, each able to communicate by CB radio, there was a twin-engined Islander aircraft in which team manager Rico Steinemann could direct operations and fly ahead to check out the route. It was a first for the Safari, and much copied in later years by others.
The 911ST had been a proven part of Porsche's rally and GT racing efforts from the previous year. For the Safari, the STs ran a mildly-tuned, 2.3-litre 190bhp (139kW) flat-six, with twin plug ignition and a strengthened clutch. Significant extra power wasn't necessary, but extra strength certainly was, and the cars were heavily modified to cope with the rigours of the extensive, fast off-road driving.
The changes included a 25 cm (10-inch) ground clearance and double-thickness floorpan and sill covers and around the front and rear struts. And, after an initial recce, the original 4.5mm-thick aluminum and underbody guard was strengthened with another 2mm steel plate. The oil tank and the rear spring plates, exposed in the right rear wheelwells, were protected with steel plates against the large rocks thrown up by the tyres. In the equatorial climate, two oil coolers were installed in each front wheelarch - and again suitably protected by plating. Nevertheless, the Safari 911 came out at 980kg, just 20kg more than the regular rally model.
One of the other lessons the team members had learned from the earlier Safaris was that they had to use 'mature' torsion bars, rather than new items. We used standard torsion bars,' says Barth, 'but old ones, not new. They had settled already with use. Even so, I remember that during the event we had to re-adjust the cars because they had dropped.'
There were spare oil lines (should the main lines in the sills become damaged) to the front oil coolers and an extra fuel system with its own 20-litre auxiliary fuel tank (located where the fuel heater would normally be). The main tank was 100 litres, with a large filler on the left front area of the bonnet and total of three fuel pumps. The ST had larger rear wheelarches - with rolled edges to clear the tyres - and adjustable rear spring plates but, unlike the racing ST models, the bonnet, bumper and wings were all in (more durable) steel.
One of the sponsors was the Sears chain, and the cars ran with that company's branded tyres, made by Michelin - hence the white beading line around the tyre walls. The alloys were the normal 'deep dish' 6-inch Fuchs found on the production cars of the time, with alloy'S' type brake calipers fitted all round -25mm spacers were used on the back. Two spares wheels were carried in the area behind the roll-over bar and another in the front.
Four Cibie Pallas spot lamps, mounted on the aluminium bonnet, supplemented the main headlamps. Behind these on the right side were twin air horns and to the left side the opening for the main fuel tank filler. This opening was covered with a hinging flap and, for 1971, locked by a small padlock. The year before, the team came out one morning to find the fuel tank drained of fuel!
The regulation FIA Appendix J roll-over bar and Scheel competition bucket seats dominated the interior. The passenger seat hinged forward to enable the two spare wheels to be pulled out from the rear, while the CB radio unit and mike were duck-taped to the roll-over bar diagonal. Both driver and co-driver had three-point fixing, Repa full harnesses. Despite everything else being stripped out, the dash looked remarkably like the contemporary production cars, except that there was a 10K tacho and a 300kph (185mph) speedometer. On the right side, a Halda Twinmaster and Heuer Timemaster stop watch and clock were mounted in front of the co-driver/navigator, complete with a large map shelf below and, on the left side of the roof, a Butler map light.
The switches for the Halda and map light were at the right side of the centre dash - while, down in the footwell, the co-driver was given a dead foot-plate to brace himself when the car was on the move. There was also a push-button for the air horns (essential for clearing crowds and wild animals!). I noted on Gary's car that there were even spare bulbs for the map light taped to the top of the dash (as seen in contemporary photos of the Safari cars).
Gary's team has performed a miracle rebuilding the car to Safari specification. He says that one of the biggest thrills was finding a factory-chalked 'STR' inside a rear wheelarch when the years of road debris were stripped away. There were still some details to finish when the car was rolled out at Daytona, but it's 95 per cent there. The team has been able to reproduce most of the interior, although the correct Scheel 400 seats will need to be completely made from scratch - and Gary hasn't yet tracked down the correct Lorenz CB radio head.
When Mr. Waldegård saw the air horns attached to the bonnet (complete with correct 'knobbly' base units), he laughed as he remembered that these were great 'until the first time you went through a mud puddle, and then they were finished!'
Another detail that had the Kempton team foxed until Waldegård saw the car were the rear mud-flaps. From close examination of the grainy black-and-white period photos, it looked as though there was a brace holding the mud-flaps behind the rear wheels. The team duly constructed a suitable part and fitted these with a single rubber flap. But when Waldegård saw the car he wondered what the brace was there for. He remembered that the original car had two mud-flaps, with one rolled up. If the car arrived at a checkpoint with a mud-flap missing, it would have been penalized. Gary and his team had misinterpreted the rolled flap for a strut!
Another detail was the fly-off handbrake. This was something Waldegård had brought to Porsche earlier. 'I had it on my rally Volkswagen in Sweden. You needed the handbrake sometimes for emergency steering, and you didn't have to fiddle with the lever locking up. Since then everybody uses it.'
Other equipment carried in the cabin included two Bilstein jacks, one attached to each sill beside the seats. There was no space for these in the front compartment after the large fuel tank and the spare wheel were installed. Space was also found in the car for tyre chains, a shovel and a hand-winch.
Looking at all the extra equipment, you get the distinct impression that the driver and co-driver could find themselves very much on their own during the event, particularly if the weather closed in or floods turned the routes into a muddy bog. It's not difficult to see the attractions of such an event in those circumstances. This was as close as it comes to endurance rallying.
The Safari was an insane battle adds Barth, 'placing unimaginable demands on the service teams. Through the three days and nights, our mechanics didn't have a quiet moment. We had to drive twelve hours in our VW Combi and then be ready to work.' It could also be dangerous, as well. The team had a mechanic drop out one after a frightening incident. 'The driver got lost and they came to a dark village to ask the way. The mechanic who asked suddenly had a gun pushed under his nose! They were criminals, so he put his foot down and only full throttle saved him. A couple of hours later the shock of it all caught up with him. He was in quite bad shape.'
Despite all the trials and tribulations and the intensive preparation, the 1971 Safari would yield no win for Porsche, as it ended in tears when Waldegård tried to overtake his team-mate. Waldegard himself summarises the story.
'It was going almost too well. I was leading the rally almost from the beginning - and by as much as 20 minutes. We changed a shock absorber once in Tanzania, but nothing major, at all. But unfortunately I was young and inexperienced. In Uganda, I tried to overtake my team-mate Zasada in the dust. We had called to the aircraft and asked them to tell Zasada that I wanted to come by because I was leading, but they couldn't raise him on the radio. I think he had it turned off - and we weren't able to tell him to stop. So I went by, through the dust. I learned a lesson never to do that again because I went off the road. He stopped in the dust when he realized I was there, but he stopped just before a 90-degree corner. So I slid into a bank and broke a spring arm - it was a stupid mistake.' The event was won by Datsun with its new 240Z.
Daytona 2007 was the first time Waldegård had seen the car since that calamitous end to the 1971 Safari. The 911ST was still being finished just hours before the event, but the result is predictably stunning. Despite being later painted in white, then blue, it has been refinished in its original color scheme of Conda Green, with satin black bonnet and front wing tops. The decals are a work of art in themselves, and are the result of much work by a local designer close to the GK Restorations shop.
Waldegård was certainly impressed. Today, the Swedish rally champion looks quite unassuming - the sort of gentle chap who would normally drive an elderly Volvo around at a snail's pace. But the giveaways are the sparkle in his eyes and the ease with which he slips into the driving seat of his old car. When the time came for the so-called demo laps, he had the car lit up and was ready to give everyone else a run for their money.
Filing out obediently on to the race track near the rear of the Exhibition class, the Swedish driver was ready to extend the ST in a way that it hadn't been for 36 years. The twin-plug engine sounded glorious. Overtaking his fellow, but unsuspecting drivers above and below on the banking, he was soon up to another 911 trailing the pace car, and ready to take both. Gary says he advised him that maybe that wasn't such a great idea, and they contented themselves with hounding the exhausts of the car in front. The marshals turned a blind eye, and judging by the contented ticking from the exhausts after they returned to the garage, this unique 911ST wasn't too bothered, either.
THE EAST AFRICAN SAFARI
The Safari was a rally like no other. Set in some of the most beautiful- and most rugged - regions in the world, it was an event the like of which the Europeans had never seen before. First run in 1953, and held every April, this mainly off-road event wound its way through the equatorial east African countries of Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. It was like the Baja 1000 and Carrera Panamericana combined - and multiplied several times over.
A typical Safari began in Dar Es Salaam, on the coast of Tanzania, and from there headed west towards the beautiful Serengeti national parklands and back east around the majestic Mount Kilimanjaro. The rally then moved north into Kenya and Nairobi. From there it crossed the Equator, skirting Lake Victoria and into the Ugandan capital of Kampala. The route back to Dar Es Salaam headed west through the Kenyan mountains, passing Thompson's Falls and Mount Kenya, before turning south to the sea at Mombasa. The capitals of each of the three nations took turns at hosting the start/finish, so the route was slightly different every year. In all, the total distance came out at about 4000 miles.
How difficult was it as a driving event? Consider that average speeds rarely topped 60mph and that temperatures could range from 40°C (105°F) in the parklands to sub-zero over the 10,000-foot mountain passes. It was at the same time hot and dusty, wet and muddy, cold and freezing, dangerous and fun. It was a challenge where you needed a car built like a tank, where you could turn blind corners and find the road blocked by fallen rocks, a flock of sheep, an overloaded truck coming straight at you or a wall of wildly-cheering townsfolk.
Over five days, the teams would snatch just a few hours' sleep. It was hard on both man and machine, and the kind of test that only the best overcame. It wasn't unusual for only 10 per cent of the 90-100 starters to finish. Nevertheless, at the beginning of the 1970S, few manufacturers doubted that, as the region's premier sporting event, the Safari had huge marketing importance.
