Ari Vatanen

His co-driver somehow survived.

Later that year, Ari Vatanen suffered a severe crash in Argentina while driving a Peugeot 205 T16.

He survived, but he sustained serious injuries.

The message was becoming impossible to ignore.

Yeah.

No, it's, it is incredible and obviously Britain does have a, a, a pretty decent record of, of co-drivers with David Richards with Vatanen in '81, Derek Ringer with Colin in, in '95 and Bur- um, Robert, as we said, with Burns in '01, and then Phil Mills with Petter in, in '03.

So I...

But there was something missing there, Scotty.

January 1988, a television helicopter over the Sahara is tracking a works Peugeot 405 Turbo 16, flat out with Ari Vatanen at the wheel.

He won this rally last year.

And then into the left of the frame comes something much bigger.

Every single one of them was a car.

And Group B rallying had been shut down at the end of 1986, and Peugeot had taken its four-wheel drive 205 Turbo 16 to the desert instead.

The car that won in 1987 was one of those, driven by a Finn called Ari Vatanen.

Two years earlier at the Rally Argentina, his Group B 205 had somersaulted at more than 190 kilometers an hour and the seat broke underneath him.

It took him 18 months to recover.

The from memory it was typed out and it was signed by all the drivers saying that we the drivers of the factory teams, and I think it may have even been some of the other teams in the event, were not prepared to continue on in that rally because the spectator control was so out of control that it just wasn't safe for them.

And you've got to remember that we drive through stages now and trees and things like that are the ultimate obstacles i guess but back in the mid-1980s it was actually people and for those some of those hot-blooded um portuguese fans that the thrill of them was actually touching the rally car as it went past and there were stories later on or even before then of of I think it might have been Ari Vatanen getting to the end of a stage in his Peugeot when they opened the rear lid of the 205 and part of somebody's finger was stuck in the actual boot lid there.

So it was quite incredible and it really was a statement that needed to be made.

Yeah.

Right.

'Cause I was there shooting Ari Vatanen, you know, and I was there seeing the roosts of dust and, and the ripping of the rocks off the side of the mountain, and I remember, you, you know, they'd go by, and you'd flip yourself away just as they go by, and close your eyes.

And all you could hear was all the rocks dancing around you-

Mm-hmm

Yeah

...

Pikes Peak, let alone I'm up there, you know, I'm a kid from Orange County, got a camera bag, and I'm at 12,000 feet trying to get into another position before Ari Vatanen comes through again or-

Mm-hmm

For more than four decades, he calmly called notes to some of the world's finest drivers.

Arguably, the best of the best being Ari Vatanen, who we will hear from later in this podcast.

The two of them, together with Peugeot's Group B-defining 205 T16, could and probably should have won the World Championship.

Joining me today for this very special edition of Spin the Rally Pod is Alan Harriman, a co-driver of similar note himself, but more importantly, Terry's son.

And as we referenced really throughout that piece, Terry did obviously co-drive for an awful lot of very, very famous drivers from Paddy Hopkirk, Vic Alford in the Porsche, Penty Auricola, Tony Pon, Malcolm Wilson, of course, Michel

Mouton.

But if we look for one driver that brings probably that the highest profile, the biggest wins, uh, and some of the most incredible memories, then that has to be Mr. Ari Vatanen.

It's always a delight to talk to Ari Vatanen.