East African Rally

This year’s East African Rally or Safari lived up to its reputation as a tough event, the 2,500-mile route varying from sun-baked, dusty, corrugated main roads to muddy by-ways calling for chains to maintain wheel-grip, on which many cars retired, some stuck in swamps, others hitting dust-hidden boulders, one having a collision with a vulture which smashed the windscreen and injured the occupants.

The winner was a Ford Zephyr but it lost more points than the Volkswagen which finished second, the smaller car being penalised for a bent number-plate and missing headlamp protectors, so that its entrant is likely to lodge a protest. In any case, VWs, after an outright win in 1954, finished 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th in their class, 2nd and 3rd in overall classification, and won the Team Prize.