The "London - Sahara - Munich World Cup Rally" was held from May 5 to 25, 1974. To mark the 50th anniversary of the rally, an event with a reading, lecture and projections will take place at autobau erlebniswelt Romanshorn on May 5, 2024.
In the first part of the evening, director Friederike Pöhlmann and actor Roland Beiküfner from the cultural group "Kunst und Drama" invite visitors to listen to stories about the 17,490 km London-Sahara-Munich Rally of 1974.
"It was the pinnacle of craziness, the satirical distortion of a car society that seeks its limits and clearly finds them."
Herbert Völker, motor journalist
In the second part, Roland Beiküfner reports on his self-sufficient Sahara trips in 1985, 1988 and 1990 under the title "Transsahara: Individual Fates", during which he drove sections of this extreme motorsport event from 1974.
This special autobau erlebniswelt event will be accompanied by music from the Deborah Handschin Trio from Raperswilen, Thurgau. This event promises all spectators adventurous entertainment and a rare historical insight into the wilder years of rallying and motorsport in general.
About the 1974 World Cup Rally
70 teams from all over the world entered the 1974 event. 52 cars started in London; 26 reached the finish in Munich, 19 of which were classified, with only five vehicles completing the entire distance of 17,490 kilometers.
To date, this is a lonely record in the history of motorsport: the gap between the first-placed Australian team with a Citroën DS 23 and the second-placed team, a team of women from France with a Peugeot 504, was 28 hours, 27 minutes and 31 seconds.
The route from London to Munich
The route of the rally led from London to Southampton, then by ferry to Le Havre and from there via Bilbao to Algeciras.
Then ferry trip to Tangier and via In Salah to Tamanrasset. From there via Agadez to Kano and back to Tamanrasset, then the eastern runway to Tunis. Ferry to Sicily and on to Brindisi, then ferry to Greece, across the country, ferry to the Turkish mainland, from Izmir to Ankara and on via Istanbul and northern Greece to Yugoslavia. Across Yugoslavia, crossed over to Austria at the Loibl Pass and over the Grossglockner Road to Salzburg and on the highway to Munich.
Further information about the event and the cultural group can be found on the "KUNST UND DRAMA" website
