UDT World Cup Rally CITROEN

The story behind a remarkable achievement

When we drove the DS23, it had been cleaned, but not repaired. Its condition says much for the care with which it was driven over appalling surfaces, its basic design, and the preparation

The 1974 UDT World Cup Rally was won most convincingly by a Citroen DS23 driven by three Australians, Andre Welinski, Ken Tubman and James Reddiex. We talked to James Reddiex, and were allowed the exclusive privilege of driving the car after the event, before it was flown back to Australia.

The crew

Andre Welinski (42) must deserve to be described as a regular and enthusiastic entrant in these extraordinary long distance rallies, since he was the first person to apply for an entry in the 1968 Daily Express London-Sydney Marathon, the 1970 Daily Mirror London-Mexico World Cup Rally and this last one, the London-Sahara-Munich UDT World Cup Rally. A flamboyant character, he has a law practice in New South Wales, and interests in a variety of entrepreneur activities. Ken Tubman, the senior member (58) of the team has also run in all three events, like Welinski in another Volvo in the London-Sydney, and with him in a Morris 1800 in the London-Mexico. He is by profession a pharmacist, and has considerable rallying experience, mostly in his home country, especially New South Wales, although there was an exploratory session in Europe. He won the first Redex Round-Australia trial in a Peugeot 203, which Reddiex says “put Peugeot on the map in Australia.” He had never driven a Citroen before last winter, when Welinski - who is a Citroen fan – lent him his own. Like most newcomers to these highly unusual cars, “Ken was most unimpressed, finding it a great wallowing beast - not until our survey did he start to get some respect for it." Now he wants to buy an SM.”

James Reddiex (37) is a newcomer to this, having done only four previous local rallies, all in a Citroen GS. He did his apprenticeship with one of the only two Citroen importers in Australia, progressing with them until he eventually took over Maxim Motors of Brisbane himself. So he is no newcomer to the apparent complexities of the D-model Citroens, and in the estimation of other London~Sahara-Munich competitors, his practical skill and experience is one of the reasons for the DS23’s success. Certainly that’s what both Andre and Ken say.

Preparing the car

Car no. 46 started life as a standard carburettor-engined Citroen DS23, with unmodified 2,175 c.c. [actually 2,347 c.c.] four-cylinder engine supposedly producing its nominal 106 bhp (DIN) at 5,500 rpm (maximum torque l23lb.ft. at 3,500 rpm). Normal weight is 25.4 cwt at the kerb; weighed in London before the start, with the three standing on the weighbridge, and all tanks filled, four spare wheels but no tools, food or personal gear, the car scaled 36%cwt. “With 9 gallons of water, tools, spares, tucker and our bags I reckon it was at least two tons.”

The carburettor engine was thought ideal. Perhaps understandably, Reddiex says “I’m a great believer in simplicity; I’m not frightened by the injection, but if anything goes wrong it’s difficult to find the fault without test gear‚Äî-all that really happens with a carburettor is it gets dirty, so you pull a jet out and clean it. Anyway, we didn’t feel that power and acceleration were the keynotes.”

“We ordered the car, and it was produced on l3 December last year in Paris. The only things that were non-standard as it came off the line were that we’d asked for no soundproofing (which saves about 1cwt), and the Citroen competitions department had substituted on the line top suspension arms with splines cut to give 3cm (l.l8in.) more ground clearance in the normal height setting. In my opinion the standard car is about 1in. too low, and this is all it needs. The only other 'non-standard bits you can’t buy are the engine mounting brackets; they take all the acceleration and braking loads, and are normally cast iron ; ours are steel, machined from solid.” Citroen in Paris have not been financially involved in this venture, but they did allow Reddiex the rare facility of building the car into its London-Sahara-Munich form in their competition workshop. This gave Jim access to a wealth of rally preparation knowhow.

A lower ratio final drive was used.

Citroen Safari rear suspension cylinders, slightly bigger to deal with the extra load, were fitted. There are not many rally winners today which rely on pressed steel wheels, but this one did, shod with Michelin X 195/70VR 15in. steel-braced radial heavy tread tyres. Tyre pressures were to be varied between 28/26psi front/rear on tarmac, sometimes 33/26 on hard desert going, down to 7/28 on, or rather in, soft sand.

The other major suspension difference was in the damper arrangements. Damping of the still unique Citroen hydropneumatic system is largely controlled by simple pierced disc restrictor valves, one in each suspension sphere. On current production cars, the valves (one per corner of the car) are pressed in. But at the introduction of the injection model, it had removable valves held in place with a ring nut. These were adopted here, three different sets being available to vary the damping according to conditions. There can be few competitors who could carry three sets of shock absorbers in a small plastic bag, as Reddiex could.

Each valve consists of a disc about the same size as a florin but twice as thick, pierced by four oblique holes. These apertures are partly covered on each side by shim-like washers rivetted to the disc. By varying the thickness and therefore the strength of these, the rate at which fluid will pass in bump and rebound is controlled.

Normal cars are more lightly damped in bump than rebound. Competition ones are the same both ways, but variously stiffer.

Compass was used inside the car, on the co-drivers lap. A set of the damper valves (compared with a florin) is displayed, showing how little had to be changed to alter damper settings

One of the few failings of the Citroen system is experienced when one goes over a hump fast. The wheels are punched up into the arches, then as they reach the down side of the hump they drop out apparently unbraced ready for the descent of the body back on to normal height; there is an abrupt jerk, almost alarmingly abrupt in comparison with the car’s usual near-floating demeanour. By stiffening the damper valves, “you prevent the wheel going up so easy, and falling out so easy”, which does help a bit to correct this.

Brakes were left standard at the front, but with harder linings for the rear drums. The normal fuel tank (65 litres - 14.3 gallons) was not going to give enough range in the desert, so it was replaced with a 120 litre (26.4 gallon) one, and another dorsal tank (65 litres) was built in behind the back seat as an auxiliary, with a changeover tap on'the back shelf, and two boot-mounted Bendix electric pumps to feed the normal mechanical pump if necessary. An extra fuel line was fitted running as a spare by a different route from the main pipe straight to the carburettor, by-passing the mechanical pump. Fuel on the rally was the required 98-octane except at Arlit, Agadez, Madoua and Kano; they tried to keep a supply of good stuff in the dorsal tank for use whenever heavy going made pinking difficult to avoid. Patrick Vanson’s Citroen damaged a piston “probably I think because he had a group 2 engine with a higher compression ratio” which didn’t like lower octane petrol. No manual distributor retard was used; instead they changed down whenever the going was very slow, keeping the revs up to 5,000 to 6,000 under lightest possible load.

An attraction of the DS for rough work is its very clean underneath. It is still vulnerable though, and by now Citroen know what needs protecting. The normal front splash guard was replaced by 1/4in. thick reinforced steel one- “if I had to make it, it would have been light alloy, but there it was, on the shelf, so I used it.” The first part of the exhaust was protected with an 1/8in. plate; under the five-speed gearbox ahead of the undertray there was a little skid plate on a rubber block under the casing. The exhaust pipe mountings have skis too, and segments of 2CV tyres were stuck under the rear suspension boots to keep stones out.

The swivelling headlamps which are undeniably very valued by the ordinary Citroen driver have proved distracting to rally drivers sawing at the wheel. Removing the cable swivel linkage, avoids that, and also with other detail changes makes removing the air chute and getting at the inboard front brakes much quicker. “Normally removing that chute takes 5 minutes; I can do it on our car in 15 sec.”

Drive shafts were removed and joints repacked with special molybdenum disulphide grease. All pipe runs were checked for chafing.

The survey

The car was finished in January, and by the time it appeared on the starting line at Wembley it had 8,200 km on its clock. Wisely they made a recce about a month before, buying the DS23 used by Neyret and Terramorsi in the previous Rallye du Maroc, in order to look at the African part of the route.

“The great thing about the survey was we knew what to expect, and that it was rough for a very, very long way. Someone said to us after one of the Spanish special stages “Wasn’t that rough! I said “Boy, you’ve got a big surprise coming to you.” “Why?” ‘You’ve got a lot rougher than that in Africa and for a lot lot longer.” It’s only my idea, but I think that for a lot of them that didn’t go further than Tamanrasset it was because they were demoralised‚ they hit the desert at night, they got lost, they broke their cars when they did find the track; I heard a number talking that they were actually afraid of the desert. Even when we came back from Kano to Arlit there was so much dissension about going on to the desert at night that they gave us a five-hour break to wait until daylight - we were just as happy to do it in daylight - but there was a great deal of concern about the desert.”

How the car went

At Figuig (the Moroccan/Algerian border), they put on four new tyres. At Tamanrasset Airport Junction they topped up with half a pint of engine oil. There was a slight gearbox leak. And climbing Assekreme mountain (9,800 ft, one of the Hoggar group) they had their only engine stop, when in very hot early morning air fuel vaporised in the mechanical pump, though the engine was not overheating. “I poured water over it, then put a wet towel on it, and we got going again.”

Back at Tamanrasset before heading south to Niger and Nigeria they spent 45 minutes attending to the car. Siafu Expeditions had flown in spares and tyres for several competitors including the Citroen. The crew fitted another set of tyres, and a set of sparking plugs. One lower pivot had been dragged off in sand; Jim cleaned and replaced it.

The front height had gone down a bit, so that was adjusted, and as one rear damper valve was found to be cracked - they’d noticed it softening at the back – heavier ones were fitted all round. Brake pads were checked, brake linings cleaned and adjusted, the car was greased and gear oil topped up.

At Agadez a headlamp bulb had to be replaced, and a back door hinge tightened. At Madoua they had their first puncture.

Kano was a rest halt, and saw greasing, oil change, filter change, a new gearbox drain plug to cure leak from gasket, hydraulic oil and filter change, plugs and points re-set, and dust blown out of radiator core.

Before they end at the units themselves, the wires feeding the trafficators have some unsupported length. That is why both had been broken, and had to be resoldered. From Australian experience, Reddiex knew that the right hand front suspension sphere, which is close to the exhaust manifold, can in continuously hot conditions fail in as little as 20,000 miles, so that was changed as a precaution. There had been a brief excursion off course, and an exhaust pipe bracket needed straightening. They repaired the puncture and washed the car – washing the Citroen before controls if possible was part of their strategy.

On the return north over the same very bad tracks between Madoua and Agadez, they broke up three tyres, and squashed the map lamp bulb in a door jamb.

At Arlit, the front height needing raising again a little, and the air cleaner element was changed as they‚had been through dust storms.

Back at Tamanrasset, they replaced the lefthand front rebound rubber which was starting to go. They‚had lost a bolt out of a mudguard bracket and the steering idler; these were replaced and “I just tightened everything up.” Gear oil needed checking again, as there was still a slight leak.

From Illizi to In Amenas, one of the very roughest sections of the whole rally, they had another puncture.

At Tunis they gave the car another general service. A bonnet lock plunger pin had broken and was replaced. The right main beam adjuster screw had rattled out and was put back. Oil from the gearbox had got on to the front brake pads, which were only a quarter worn; still, they had to be replaced. “Pity, because I think we could have gone the whole way on those pads. “The rest of the front suspension rebound rubbers were fitted as a precaution. Three rear lamp bulbs were renewed, and the right front window had moved outwards a bit, so Jim tightened that.

From the short Targa Florio stage to Messina they had another puncture, renewing both the set of tyres used and the four spares at St Giovanni. The final (7th) puncture happened in Turkey after Seban. At Istanbul, Jim greased the distributor cam which had squeaked; one new tyre was obtained from Mrs Patrick Vanson who was providing some support for her husband.

At Stavros in Greece‚- which was where Citroen service, hastily mustered by the factory when they abruptly woke up to the fact that they had a possible -winner, first met them‚ - Jim mentioned that he’d noticed a slight rattle in the righthand front lower suspension ball joint on light bumps. It was this one whose protective boot had been torn off in the sand. Citroen changed the complete drive assembly, being the quickest thing to do, but for Jim it was “a disappointment, because I wanted to finish with the car as it had started.”

At the Yugoslav border with Austria, they adjusted the handbrake- ”that’s all; and it’s not been touched since we finished.”

Driving conditions

Getting stuck in sand was something every competitor knew. The Citroen got stuck three times in the desert, the second time on the way to Arlit in Niger, when they slowed to see if they could help the Peugeots of Neyret and Mlle Dacremont which were bogged, and thus bogged themselves. Normal procedure was to clear away sand in front of the wheels, put the suspension up to the third notch, let the driving tyres down to 7 psi, and drive out- That didn’t work, so they decided to help the Peugeots first. That didn’t go well; sand boards kept skidding out from under the rear wheels. Jim went back to the DS23, leaving Andre with Neyret and Dacremont, and cleared sand away from in front of the whole car, not just the tyres; it was while digging under the Citroen’s nose that he banged a hand which later went septic, briefly more seriously than he admits. Asking Ken to “Just give me a little push” Jim started the car, and let the clutch out very gently; the car stirred; calling the others over to push, they got the Citroen out on to a short stretch of hard stuff. Neyret’s car was closest, so they attached one tow rope to him, and he attached his to Dacremont’s, which was much further in. There wasn’t enough room for one pull; they had to go forwards 30 yards, go back, shorten the first rope, forwards again, and so on.

Was the Citroen much faster over the desert than the others? Being in front, they didn’t see much of others to compare. “But when we all got out of that, we packed up our ropes, and the Peugeots went on and waited for us a little ahead. We got going, approached them, they waved us on, then followed themselves, so that we had a small flying start. The next control was l06km further on, and we beat them there by over half an hour."

“We got bogged beside Mrs Trautmann; she had waved us on when she was stuck, we slowed, and down we went; Chuchua pulled us both out."

How much did conditions change between recce and rally? In Morocco, the Missour-Mengoub stretch had had big washaways and holes filled in, though it was still pretty rough; “our notes weren’t much use to us there. When we did the survey, the stretch from Hirhafok (near Tamanrasset) north to lllizi was a nightmare. One bit was like a lunar landscape, we were driving over rocks trying to avoid bigger rocks for 125 miles; it was worse than the corrugations, because you couldn’t avoid them; you couldn’t get going, having to zig-zag all the time. But, thankfully, it was gone for the rally; they’d graded it a bit.”

“There were corrugations for roughly half the African part. The worst were between lllizi and In Amenas - 6 to 8in. deep and l5 to l8in. across the peaks. If you stopped on them, it was almost impossible to re-start. The whole car was dancing; you didn’t have double vision, you had quadruple vision. The only way was to put one wheel right up on the edge of the track; then you could beat the dance. The fastest we went in that stuff was 70 to 90 kph; we’d have liked to go faster, but there were washouts and (dried river) crossings.”

“Arlit to Agadez was badly washed out by rain before the rally. On the way down near Madoua the track was completely changed - sand had washed across, there were bad washouts, and sheets and sheets of water. In three days when we came back it had all gone - all dust again. I’m told that two hours after we left Kano they had 7in. of rain.

“Still on the way back to Tamanrasset, we hit a dust storm; we turned the driving lamps sideways to pick up the scrub, because you couldn’t see six yards ahead.”

Navigation

In Salah, in Algeria, will no doubt be engraved on several UDT World Cup Rally competitors’ hearts. It was a crucial moment in the event. Briefly covering something that changed the rally for many, and which took up more time than it takes to relate, a new tarmac road is being built southwards. It was not finished then (it won’t be for some time) and the confusion of bulldozer tracks at one point thoroughly confused the departure of the old piste which the rally had to follow. Henry Liddon says you could see in daylight how muddled it was from the air; but the competitors weren’t in the air, and it was night. Reddiex says that they eventually found the right piste; you had to go only a little way beyond on the correct side of some sandhills - we went across on to some very rough sand, and suddenly saw the track and then the markers, and we knew we were right. We turned round because we’d decided we’d all go together, and we put the spotlamp on Patrick Vanson, waved it, and took off and a couple of cars started to follow, and we just assumed everyone would follow them. And it turned out that the two were Cowan and Chuchua.

Vanson told me later that he said to the others “Look, Welinski’s gone off that way and hasn’t come back – let’s go, but they wanted to lie up till daylight. He wanted to go, but on his own, and eventually they decided to follow and found the track. We worked out that we couldstill do the bit to Tamanrasset Airport Junction on time if we averaged ll0kph, so we streaked off and ended up 6 minutes late."

“It was probably only 1km radius, and the minute you got out of it, here was a thing saying Arak, and a good, well-marked piste - but you had to be on the track to find it.” They got lost once more,  near Fort Gardel, but found themselves again in time.

Driving car no. 46

Autocar was privileged to be able to borrow the Citroen a week after the victorious arrival at Munich. They had driven it back to Paris, where someone had kindly bonked it slightly parking (not the crew). I collected it from Citroen Cars Ltd at Slough, and it seemed to go as efficiently as its astonishingly unbattered appearance would suggest.

They had elected to run hot rather than dusty; the windows had been kept up in the sand, and the car was not nearly as messy as usual, though it had certainly not been vacuum’d. Instead of sitting on squashy-marshmallows as one usually does in a DS, you are held in an equally comfortable but very much more locating bucket seat. The car is of course higher than usual, and so isthe seat. L can’t recall driving a car which corners as well and feels as stable in a fast bend whilst sitting in such an elevated position. Big Citroens always remind me of camels with frog noses; the camel resemblance is increased by this driving, position.

Everything feels most pleasantly free and run-in. It is also noisier than usual, the engine making a quite harsh, almost hammering noise as you rev it. It certainly is willing to rev, and to pull, though you realise that the car is heavier than standard. Gearing in fifth seems to work out at approximately l7 1/2 mph per 1,000 rpm, assuming the standard revcounter is accurate and checking the car over a known distance. There wasn’t time to check performance properly, but it certainly felt very fit. The column gearchange works with the usual Citroen precision. I had forgotten that it is easy to heel-and-toe in spite of that funny button brake “pedal”. The ride is not the usual near-magic-carpet one, but much stiffer at low speeds, almost joggly - it improves as you go faster. I couldn’t find a hump suitable to see how this DS behaved; but what bumps I did encounter did not confuse it in the least.

Probably because of the tyres, the steering felt lighter than usual, though it would still chatter at you if held on full lock when manoeuvring. With the window down, a loud tyre whine is heard. There is quite a lot of bump-thump.

I coveted the American-made “Airguide” compass. Reddiex had said how they had tried a lot of compasses in a place in Paris, and had been horrified how many of them read differently. This big marine or aeronautical one has been one of the few that seemed reliable, and it certainly had imperturbably dead-beat action. They found it read correctly if nursed in the co-driver’s lap.

Under the bonnet one immediately notes that the normal spare wheel space is empty. This is to protect the radiator in any crash. There was certainly a fair bit of dust, and some oil still lying around the transmission. The normal radiator fan has an electric fan ahead of it neatly mounted in the cowling next to the core, and manually switched.

I’ve been lucky enough to drive one or two rally cars after they've won events such as this, and including all three marathon rally winners. This Citroen is not as fast as the London-Mexico Escort -and it might be said to have avenged the misfortune of Lucian (sic) Bianchi whose Citroen crashed when leading the London-Sydney which the Hillman Hunter won - but it certainly felt the healthiest of all.

James Reddiex summed it up rather oddly but neatly. “The car went fantastically well - it went better than I hoped, but as good as I expected"