'We knew that the Safari needed very special preparations. The car had to be reinforced in a different way, with a completely different ride height to get the ground clearance. We needed different underbody protection, the engine can get to hot. It was always a compromise.

'We were allowed to do as much testing and recce work as we wanted. The practice cars were set up as close as we could to what we thought would be needed for the rally. But, of course, you cannot compare it with the amount of testing we did when I was driving for Toyota in the 1980s. We spent months testing then, to get everything absolutely right. It wasn't like that in '71, because we didn't know how difficult the Safari was.

'The Safari has always been, let's say, unpleasant in some ways, but lovely and fantastic in others. It was so different from all the rallies we did in Europe. All those rallies were about the same, whether you went to Sweden, Italy, or England - but when you went to Africa it was a completely different story. I've become a big, big fan of Africa as a continent and also for the rally. I've loved it from the very first day.

'You could almost say it was a road race in Africa because there were only time controls, and those times were always too tight, so you always lost time everywhere. It was like one long stage of 5000km.

'The conditions could be anything. If it was sunshine and nice, it would be very dusty. If it was raining, it was extremely muddy. You had to expect anything.

'There was no special food in those days, and we didn't eat anything in particular. It hasn't been my philosophy in life to do something I don't like - live your life as you like, eat what you like and drink what you like, sleep as much or as little as you like and you will be a better driver. If somebody else told me I have to eat this and that and drink this and that, I wouldn't like it at all. It's a completely different story today, of course The sport has expanded a lot since then. I'm lucky because, compared to 1971, the sport has grown and grown and maybe has gone a little bit to far.

'Gary has done a fantastic job on the car. I couldn't believe it, because when I came to Florida for the first time I saw a nice looking car, but then they started to ask me about every single detail. They're perfectionists! For me it is a little bit different because it was my job to drive cars, and this was one car in a long series of good cars. So maybe I don't look at it the same way as these perfectionists do - if you follow what I mean.

'When I see the results of Gary's work, everything is just incredible. I recognised all the little details - absolutely. It's 37 years ago but, when he pointed them out to me, it just all came back.