Just returned from the International Historic Motor Show held over the weekend at Stoneleigh Park, Warwick. This is the third year it has been run and it was bigger and better than ever. The highlight was the public appearance for the very first time in this country of the ex-Carlos Sainz ST185 rally car run by TTE on the Acropolis Rally in Greece in 1992.
The car was fitted with a mechanical centre diff for this event and it made handling extremely unpredictable. The end result was that the car ended up on its roof at the bottom of a Greek ravine. TTE subsequently rebuilt the car (this time with a viscous centre diff) and it was campaigned in Sweden before eventually ending up in Eastern Europe. It was purchased last year by rally enthusiast Mark Sharratt and restored to the colours it ran in the Acropolis.
The first two photos show the car in action during the 1992 Acropolis Rally
This photo show the interior of the car as it was when it arrived in the UK from Eastern Europe. The Stack combined analogue and digital dash plus the navigators digital console were later, post 1992 additions.
The first photo in this series show the car about to leave the undercover Parc Ferme for the paddock assembly area.
The final three photos show the car at the end of the second demo run in the afternoon with the owner/driver Mark Sharratt in deep conversation with our very own Mike Kelly
A co-drivers impressions:
I was lucky enough to be invited to join Mark for the two demonstration runs in the morning. The organisers of the event are quite strict on safety even although the demo stage is quite short and relatively slow. Everyone is advised to wear helmet, fireproof race suit, etc. Fortunately Mark had advised me to bring my kit so I at least looked the part sitting in the car.
There was quite a delay before our first run so we had the opportunity to go through most of the switches and controls. Mark started by pointing out the most important ones first, battery master switch located on the lower part of the centre console within easy reach of both the driver and navigator as is the electrically fired cockpit and engine bay extinguisher system. There is a small back-up extinguisher under the drivers seat. I hoped we wouldn’t require any of these during our runs! A useful accessory mounted on the side of the centre console is an Anderson plug so if your on-board battery runs flat you can simply plug in an auxiliary battery.
The view from the navigators seat is not as bad as on contemporary WRC cars where the co-driver almost seems to sit on the floor in order to get the centre of gravity as low as possible. The most obvious thing is the lamp pod which probably helps the driver to place the car in the right position to get around tight corners. A common complaint from the works GT-Four drivers was the fact that the sloping bonnet meant you couldn’t place the car on the road as precisely as other cars. This was especially true of the ST205 variant. It wasn’t until the Corolla WRC arrived that this problem was overcome.
Inside the cockpit the co-driver is faced with a battery of circuit breakers, relays and the digital navigation console. There is a small navigation repeater display angled towards the driver which has a sub-menu capability. Mark is still getting to grips with this and there seems to be no shortage of ex-TTE people willing to provide advice and even parts to keep the car running. There is a large red light (permanently on) which informs the driver that water injection is inactive. It’s intriguing to know that TTE considered this sufficiently important to give it such prominence on the centre console.
With the engine running conversation between driver and navigator is possible…just! My full-face helmet probably didn’t help much though. Mark had a Peltor helmet with a built-in microphone and headset and if I was contemplating doing historic rally events I’d probably go for one of these too. Just prior to Mark acquiring the car the engine had been rebuilt by Breuer Developments in Belgium and fitted with a new Sachs ceramic ‘paddle type’ rally clutch. Breuer were responsible for most of the TTE engine work when they ran in the WRC. The cacophony of sound in the cockpit was typical competition car but all the important bits like the engine and gearbox sounded fine. The straight-cut Xtrac gearbox adds to the competition car feel and with the very on/off nature of the ceramic clutch progress to the start line was via a series of short sharp movements.
Due to fact that the organisers were running the cars on an oldest first, youngest last basis we had the longest wait of the lot and coolant temperatures started to go a bit high. I was surprised that TTE had seen fit to install a manually switched fan but this may have been to release a few extra horses from the engine? There is also an intriguing switch marked ‘Diff’ on the lower centre console. Apparently this does nothing but may in the past have activated an electric oil pump for the rear differential.
Finally we arrived at the start line and when the flag fell Mark dropped the clutch with about 6000 rpm on the clock. The Celica slewed sideways as the 400+Nm of torque easily broke the available traction from the knobbly gravel/forest tyres on the asphalt stage start. Fortunately my faith in his driving abilities was quickly restored as he fought the car back into a straight line then, before we knew it, the first corner was on us, a 90 degree left hander. At this point I thought he might have to use the handbrake to get the back sliding but no, another boot-full of throttle and the rear of the car pirouetted neatly and we were banging our way back up through the Xtrac box on the next gravel uphill stretch. Our average speed through the stage was 70kph on the first run and 76kph on the second although we did slightly overshoot one bend on the return. Mark elected to take to the grass rather than mow down the marker post and possibly damage the front of the car and the light pod. Despite the fact we were running without anti-lag we did manage some impressive flame outs to amuse the spectators.
The overriding impression I was left with was that the car was set up for loose surface work. There was a surprising amount of fore and aft pitching movement as we accelerated and braked through the stage. Conversely there was very little roll. The blade-type anti-roll bar was set to full hard during our two runs and this meant it was easy to throttle-steer around the corners, particularly with the prodigious amount of torque available. The engine was very free revving and we were often up in the 6-7000rpm range despite the stage being tight and twisty. I think if Mark is contemplating doing some tarmac historic events I’d want to switch to the larger diameter wheels and semi slick tyres that TTE used on the Monte, San Remo etc. This would also help by effectively increasing the spring rate. The remote reservoir Bilstein dampers are also adjustable and I think I’d try increasing the damping to make the car drive ‘flatter’ through the stage.
Finally I’d like to thank Mark Sharratt for his very kind invitation to sample this historic rally car. Who knows, maybe he’ll let me behind the wheel next time?
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