They rallied those things too. I like the street racing part at 6.12:
When rallycross was organised for the first time in mainland Europe in 1969, in Venlo in the Netherlands, the Wartburg importer Auto Palace fielded a "works" team with 311's, driven by two of its employees. I'm not sure which sporting pedigree they were trying to prove with a car weighing 900 kilos for an almighty 40 BHP in standard form, but one of them finished 2nd overall and won the 1000cc FWD class, driven by my dad.
He also used one in rallies. He said he got called a madman by other competitors because of his downhill driving, overtaking everything in sight. In fact he was just trying to make up the time lost going uphill.
Now Mark Higgins had the advantage of knowing the place by heart. The Manx Rally allowed recce, so everyone else got a chance of seeing the stage beforehand and making their own pace notes. Some gravel rallies don't allow it, all you get is a dvd of someone else making a slow speed pass over the stage and you buy someone else's notes.
Like this one, although I'm not sure the instructions at 2.05 were included in the notes.
I even went to see rallies in Wales just to see him work his magic, Julian Reynolds was very impressive to watch.
In this one, he has a bit of a moment at 1.17... I'm standing at the next hairpin, next to the car parked in the distance at 1.34.
This one is great as well. Includes a triple mobile chicane at 8.35.
More modern equipment, Andrew Nesbitt touring around the Donegal countryside in a Subaru.
I can assure you the codriver, who is a good friend of mine, is alive and well, has not died of a heart attack from all the excitement and 15 years on still hasn't lost his voice. Andrew had a hearing problem, so he was shouting to make sure he knows when to slow down (which he doesn't really do much of). Outside the car, he's a lot more relaxed. He's never shouted at me like that anyway when we were part of the same team.
I prefer to avoid the shouting. Instead I have issues differentiating Left and Right.
If you ever ask me "what's the most fun you've ever had with your pants on", the above 8 minute sequence would probably near the top of the list. The reason for the car's behaviour on tarmac is that it was on narrow 13" winter tyres. Ordinary ones you put on your road car. No special pattern, no special compound, nothing. We weren't allowed to use anything else, and they don't really do much for grip on tarmac. It's probably the performance I'm the most proud of. Between the start on Saturday at 8h00 and the finish Sunday at 16h00, I think I slept 3 hours because I wanted to prepare the Sunday. Tiring, but rewarding when all goes right and you beat everyone else over a few stages.