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Vintage Auto Rally Challenges Both Cars and Drivers
WCC Auto Restoration Instructor Takes on European Driving Adventure
By Laura Lyjak (From the Newsletter of Washtenaw Community College, February 8, 2001)
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Not everyone has the same idea of fun. Not everyone wants to spend five days in Europe driving a rally over mountains in snow and ice. Not everyone thinks it’s fun to navigate a daily route of winding roads through French towns, too intent on getting to the next checkpoint to even notice the scenery. And not everyone would consider doing this in a 1967 Saab, a vehicle with a reputation for frequent engine seizures. That just proves that Peter Pleitner isn’t like everyone else, especially when it comes to cars. Pleitner, head of Washtenaw Community College’s new Auto Restoration Program, spent five days participating in the 12th Classic Rally Association’s Winter Challenge Rally (also known as the Monte Carlo Winter Challenge) in January 2001. This rally of vintage automobiles tests both drivers and vehicles on a course through the French Alps ending in Cannes in southern France. Pleitner says, “I enjoyed the challenge; it’s like an endurance sport. Plus there is the mental challenge of navigating, along with computing time and speed while we’re accelerating and decelerating on steep roads and winding turns.” Sure sounds great. |
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This year 175 vintage cars entered the rally. All were built before 1968 with no modern modifications. Some participants drove collector’s items like one 1928 Bentley which Pleitner estimated is worth a half-million dollars. The entry list included many 1950’s and 1960’s cars like Jaguar, Porsche, MGB, and Austin Healey. The routes for the race differed slightly, with starting points in several countries, as well as a “marathon” route and a more difficult “sporting” route. Pleitner teamed with automobile journalist Kevin Clemens for this excursion ― Clemens drove and Pleitner navigated. They chose the sporting route, which required on overnight drive through the Alps. Clemens had participated in a few of these European rallies before but this was Pleitner’s first. |
 1967 Saab Driven by Peter Pleitner and Kevin Clemens |
Competitors drove from early morning through the evening; stopping at a dozen or more checkpoints along the way; navigating poorly marked roads, hoping to avoid penalties for driving off course, arriving too early or arriving too late. Stopping for lunch or the bathroom was not always an option and forgetting that French gas stations close from noon to 2:00 p.m. could cause a lot of problems.
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Start of the Winter Challenge Brooklands, England |
Nothing really went as expected for Pleitner and Clemens. They planned to start in Noordwijk, Holland after visiting the Saab museum in Sweden. Their car was suppose to have been shipped to Sweden and checked out by Saab’s own expert, a retired world champion rally driver. When they arrived at the museum, they discovered the car had been put on a later ship. So they flew to England, convinced customs officials in Liverpool to let them off-load their car and made plans to begin with other rally participants in Brooklands, England. |
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While driving the car to Brooklands, the engine seized. With only a day until the race, they managed to contact a Saab dealer, get a replacement engine from a UK collector and make it in time for the start of the rally. For three days things went well enough. The first day they arrived in Nancy, France as planned, using new route instructions and maps and the real-time “plot and dash method.” The second day they navigated the routes Pleitner had prepared before leaving home, traveling from Nancy to Aix-les-Bains. The third day they drove numerous mountain stages returning to Aix-les-Bains again. |
 View Out Window of 1967 Saab Above Aix-les-Bains, France |
It was the fourth day that they ran into problems again. This was to be an overnight drive for the sporting route but the rally ended mid-morning for Pleitner and Clemens. Going up a steep mountain road, the second engine seized. The rally’s “sweep vehicle” came by and towed the car to the top of the pass. “After some tire-kicking disgust,” Pleitner says “we realized we weren’t going to finish the rally.”
He admits he felt a bit of relief as well. The last few days had been grueling. But instead of relaxing, he discovered he had ten minutes to catch the last train to Cannes if he wanted to catch the end of the rally. He managed to make it. Once on the train, there as one final glitch ― he got off at the wrong stop to transfer. Once more he found himself racing. This time in a taxi to beat the train to the next station and meet the connecting train. “It was like I never left the rally,” he says.
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One of the Class Winners Cannes, France |
It ended happily though. At 1:00 a.m. he settle into a hotel in Cannes surrounded by palm trees. He got to see the finishers come in the next morning, attend the final banquet, and even take time to eat dinner in a restaurant. The Saab was shipped off to the museum in Sweden for safe-keeping. Does he plan to do it again? “I learned so much; I’d love to apply those lessons to another rally. This rally is really the toughest for vintage cars because of the competitiveness and the weather. Meeting the drivers, seeing a lot of the cars and visiting with the Saab museum’s curator all really contributed to my professional development,” he adds “as well as being fun.” “But next year I’d like to try a summer rally,” he continues “the weather is warmer and they even let you stop for lunch.” |
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You can also read a more extensive article by Keven Clemens that was published in |
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