From the archives of Bob Montgomery
THE HEADLIGHT SCANDAL: The very nature of rallying, with its factory-backed teams, lends itself to a high level of protests. These protests are often controversial but sometimes it's the organisers themselves who create the controversy.
This was never more apparent than on the 1966 Monte Carlo Rally. On that occasion, four British cars, three Minis and a Lotus Cortina, finished in the first four places at the end of the rally. After nearly a day of official scrutineering and wrangling, all four were disqualified and the winner was announced to be a French Citroën. Behind these simple facts lay a fascinating story of intrigue and self-interest.
The 1966 Monte Carlo Rally coincided with the introduction of the new Group One regulations, and these cars were favoured in the results because cars conforming to other classes carried a heavy handicap on their special stage times. It was generally agreed that the new Group 1 regulations favoured the French Citroëns in particular. Their big, front-wheel-drive DS 21s had dominated the Group one category for several years and the change in rules appeared only to enhance their strengths.
But BMC's Competition Department had managed to have the Mini Cooper S accepted in the Group one category, as had Ford with the Lotus Cortina. The first signs of trouble occurred at the post-event scrutineering when the first four cars were stripped to the last nut and bolt in an obvious attempt to find something which would allow them to be excluded from Group One.
Everything was found to be in order, but then, surprise, surprise, they were excluded on the grounds that their headlight dipping systems used four iodine bulbs in four separate lenses.
This system, it was claimed, did not comply with international lighting regulations.
This was simply sensational, and quite inexplicable, as the two British teams using this system - then a new form of more powerful headlights - had raised this very point with the governing body of motorsport, the FIA, in Paris prior to the event and had been given the all-clear to use the system.
All protests to such effect were useless, as the organisers persisted in awarding a rather hollow victory to Citroën. For the British, however, there was to be an unexpected compensation as they discovered that sometimes there is as much publicity in failure as there is in winning!
The BMC Minis went on to have an enviable record on the Monte Carlo and other major rallies. Their success began on the 1962 Swedish Rally to the Midnight Sun with a 998cc Mini Cooper driven by Bengt Soderström, followed by Pat Moss winning the Tulip Rally and the German Rally in a similar car.
1964 saw the first win in the Monte Carlo Rally when Paddy Hopkirk and Henry Liddon won in a 1071cc Cooper S Timo Makinen and Paul Easter won in 1965 in a 1275 cc version and then won again in 1966 only to be disqualified in the headlamps scandal. Finally, Rauno Aaltonen and Henry Liddon completed the hat-trick in 1967.
It is probably fair to say that Rauno Aaltonen was the most successful Mini exponent, as in addition to his Monte Carlo Rally win he became European Rally Champion in 1965 when his victories included the RAC Rally of Great Britain, the only time a Mini won that event.