Counting the days until we reunite four famous Ford Escorts from the toughest rally ever known…the 1970 London to Mexico World Cup Rally

At this year’s Lancaster Insurance Classic Motor Show from 7-9 November at the NEC, we’ll be on Stand 595, Hall 3 doing what we do best…..reuniting not one, two or three but FOUR famous Ford Escorts that took part in what has become regarded as the toughest and most challenging rally of all time….the 1970 Daily Mirror London to Mexico World Cup Rally.

Leaving London’s Wembley Stadium on Sunday 19th April 1970, 106 entrants headed South towards their anticipated finish on May 27th, after travelling through ten European, eight South American and seven Central American countries, with four water crossings thrown in to the mix. Over 16,000 miles (25,750kms) in just over 5 weeks, 17 of the longest, fastest, highest and most demanding special stages ever laid out, with the promise of making every competitor more tired, more exhilarated, more downcast and yet more satisfied than on any event they had ever tackled.

FTW 48H, a ‘Works’ Escort driven on the 1970 event by Colin Malkin and Richard Hudson-Evans…..still competing today and with us alongside three other surviving World Cup Escorts on STAND 595, HALL 3, 7-9 November. Fifty five years separates these two photo’s, the first taken at a Passage Control in Germany on April 20th 1970, the second taken more recently before the same car competed on the 2025 Pearl of India rally, in the hands of private owner Simon Spinks. He and co-driver Jim Grayson finished 3rd on this year’s event, a remarkable achievement in a car originally built in 1969!

Over the coming days leading up to the NEC Classic Motor Show, we’ll be bringing you daily snippets about the most challenging rally of all, together with more insight into the ‘Famous Four’……the Escorts that we’ll feature on our Show Stand, together for the first time in fifty five years!

Don’t forget to use our special Discount `Code CCCNOV5644 to get £4 off your usual ticket price when ordering online.

Buy your NEC Classic Motor Show tickets using our Club Code CCCNOV5644 to get discounted prices!

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We hope to see you there, where you’ll see not only the famous Hannu Mikkola/Gunnar Palm 1970 London to Mexico World Cup Rally winning Escort FEV1H, but three other Escorts from the very same event, reunited after 55 years in the wilderness!

http://www.necclassicmotorshow.com/

We’ll be at the Lancaster Insurance Classic Motor Show 2025 at the NEC…come and see us and find out what we’re up to!

The Historic Marathon Rally Group has a stand at the NEC from 7th-9th November 2025.

We can be found in Hall 3, Stand 595

Our Discount Code is CCCNOV5644

The Club Code unlocks a £4.00 discount off single-day adult ticket prices or £2.00 off family, child and multi-day tickets. The Club discount will be applied to the advance ticket prices purchased before midnight on Thursday November 6th and the show open ticket prices thereafter.

Full ticket information at: http://www.necclassicmotorshow.com/ticket-information

We look forward to seeing you there!

In the meantime, here’s a little teaser showing what Stand 595, Hall 3 is all about!

HMRG, the BMC & Leyland Show and Abingdon ’70

If you went down to the woods (well, sun-kissed Gaydon anyway!) today, Sunday 13th July 2025, you were probably, just as we were…..completely blown away by the sheer scale of the The BMC & Leyland Show featuring Abingdon ’70 at The British Motor Museum, Gaydon. Here’s a quick look at some of the happenings throughout the day, brought to you by the Historic Marathon Rally Group, in attendance with a line-up of great Marathon cars and supporting the main event and Abingdon’s 70th Anniversary.

First car to catch our eye, and to demonstrate that the breadth of BMC & BLMC competition cars went from the ridiculous to the sublime, was this Austin Allegro 1300 from 1974, 51 years on from making its international rallying debut on the Welsh Rally, entered by Howells Garages, leading Leyland Special Tuning Distributors based in Cardiff and Newport. Brought to Gaydon by Andy ‘ACE’ Harrison of ACESPEED. Read the story below and smile out loud ….

Then it was time to marvel at the world outside, beneath the bonnet and within the cockpit of one of the most famous MGC’s of all time, ‘Romeo’, one of a pair of MGC ‘Sebrings’ (the other being known as ‘Mabel’) assembled by BMC at Abingdon to run in the 1967 Targa Florio. In 1968, the MGC GTS, as it was by then known, raced at Sebring and on the 84 hour Marathon de la Route at the Nurburgring in Germany. The final outing for both cars was in 1969 at Sebring, when the MGC competition project was cancelled. With such names as Hopkirk, Makinen and Fall adding glitter behind the wheel, this surely is one of THE most special cars of the Show.

But it didn’t stop there of course…..From the recreated BMC transporters with their cargo of precious Mini Coopers to the vast array of Austin Healey 3000’s, Triumph saloons big and small, MGA’s, MGB’s and MGC’s of the ’50s, ’60’s and ’70s, there truly was something for everyone.

David Scothorn, HMRG Committee member brought along his ex-Monte-Carlo MGA Coupé in all its patinated glory.

Simon Wilkinson of Colne Classics in Clacton, Essex drove down and back in his ex Pirelli Classic Marathon MGC roadster, thankful in the intense weekend heat for the air vent fitted into the hardtop. Seen here displayed next to Ian Dixon’s stunning restored ex-1974 London-Sahara-Munich World Cup Rally Marina V8 Coupé, this MGC was bought brand new in 1969 by a private individual who then took it motor racing two weeks after taking delivery. Those were the days! Eventually converted into a rally car and used extensively, Simon acquired the car by happenstance and has tamed it down by fitting suspension and seats and various bits that make it a far more civilised and usable car on the road without losing any of its mighty performance.

Now, HMRG’s very own Bronwyn ‘Bron’ Burrell needs no real introduction. Famously reunited some ten years ago with ‘Puff the Magic Wagon’ the very Austin Maxi she co-drove in a three-woman team on the 1970 London to Mexico World Cup Rally at the tender age of 24, and still rallying the car regularly and successfully with her ‘spectacularly gifted’ co-driver Suzanne Barker, not only is Bron also a pretty useful golfer but it turns out she makes exceedingly good jams and marmalades

Specially for the Abingdon 70th and HMRG’s much needed coffers, which supports our Group’s activities and future plans, Bron made 25 jars of MARATHON MARMALADE, yummy on your toast with its ‘hint of whiskey’ flavouring, using a carefully selected peaty scotch to make any breakfast kick start one’s day.

All twenty five jars were sold, along with three of Bron’s personally owned rally books…so thanks to everyone who were kind and generous enough to part with their hard-earned….and it was a pleasure to meet every single person who clearly enjoys a tipple before eight o’clock in the morning!

One of the biggest treats for us at HMRG is meeting people from all over the globe who share our passion, and it never ceases to amaze us and delight us to learn just what a small, weird and wonderful world we live in and to hear the stories from the lips of people you’d never imagine had lived such interesting lives just by looking at them.

One such visitor today was Alan Zafer, seen below handing over some filthy lucre for a jar of Bron’s finest, whilst casually letting slip that he worked in the PR Department for BMC back in the sixties and seventies and travelled the globe as part of the Competitions Department team with Peter Browning and later Stuart Turner ensuring that BMC / BLMC got the Press they needed during the 1968 London to Sydney Marathon and the 1970 London to Mexico World Cup Rally. Alan, enjoy your Marathon Marmalade and thanks for adding to our storybook.

The man himself would we are sure have loved to still be around to have been at Gaydon today but you’ll have been spoilt for choice amongst a whole gaggle of ex-works Mini Cooper ‘S’ models……

So if you transported yourself to Gaydon on Sunday 13th July and witnessed history in all its technicolour glory, we thank you for taking the time to come and hope you had as much fun as we at HMRG did!

Here are a few more images that captured the mood today……we hope you enjoy these too!

The Historic Marathon Rally Group is bringing together cars and competitors from ALL of the Historic Marathons and Endurance Rallies from 1968 to 2025 for a GRAND REUNION at the British Motor Museum, Gaydon on Sunday 19th April 2026. If you would like to join us, or know anyone associated with, or enthusiastic about these giant-killing rallies that tested man, woman and machine, we’d love to hear from you by e-mail at [email protected]

What’s the most unusual long-distance Marathon Rally car you can think of?

Would you believe that 50 years ago, Michael Fothergill and Peter Jackson sat in their choice of steed at Wembley Stadium on 5th May 1974 waiting for the flag to drop that would send them on their way in an old but strong and trusty Hillman Minx 1500 running Car No.37, from London to Munich via two crossings of the terrifying Sahara Desert as they started the UDT World Cup Rally?

46 years later, HMRG Member Ralph Humby was in lockdown and did what most petrolheads do…..he bought a car on e-Bay. Not just any car….but the very same Hillman Minx, unaware of its unusual back story.

This little Minx was trailered up from Hampshire and featured at our Historic Marathon Rally Show on Sunday 21st April 2024, as Ralph continues his faithful restoration using old photographs and film footage as his only reference.

The rest, as they say, is history!