Walter Röhrl is one of the most outstanding rally drivers in international motorsport history. Since the 1972 Olympic Rally at the latest, his name has been familiar to every motorsport fan, as this was the beginning of an incomparable career.
From October 30, 2022 to April 16, 2023, the Technik Museum Speyer is dedicating a special section to the rally icon's vehicles. With the "Special exhibition: Walter Röhrl", fourteen vehicles from the motorsport driver's history will be on display.
The special exhibition is included in the Technik Museum Speyer admission price and can be seen during regular opening hours in the Raumfahrthalle. Information can be found at www.technik-museum.de/roehrl.
Among the vehicles on display are the original Opel Ascona 400 in which Röhrl became world champion driver in West Africa at the "Ivory Coast Rally", a replica of the Ford Capri 2600 RS in which he competed in the 1972 Olympic Rally, and a replica of the Fiat 131 Abarth in which Walter Röhrl won the 1980 Monte Carlo Rally.
Born in Regensburg, he is still active today and most recently took part in the Olympic Rally Revival in the summer. Victories and awards are part of his life. In Italy, he was voted "Rally Driver of the Century" and a jury of 100 motorsport experts from all over the world named him the "best rally driver of all time". However, Röhrl came to motorsport more by chance, as his father wanted him to become a stonemason. At the age of 16, he joined the Regensburg Episcopal Ordinariate as secretary to the Director of Finance. On his 18th birthday and upon receiving his driver's license, Secretary Röhrl also became a driver for the responsible financial director and drove around 120,000 km a year on Bavarian country roads on behalf of the Ordinariate.
Walter Röhrl's ski club comrade Herbert Marecek, with whom he often traveled the snow-covered roads of the Bavarian forest for ski training, discovered the young Bavarian's extraordinary talent and encouraged him to take part in rallies. The 1968 Rally Bavaria was the start of Röhrl's incomparable rally career. By the end of 1970, he had driven various Alfa Romeo, BMW and Porsche cars. In December 1970, Ford showed interest in a collaboration through partner "Kleint Racing", which opened the door to a professional career.
In 1972, Walter Röhrl and co-driver Hannes Rothfuß drove the Capri 2600 RS (HH-RD 950) to the start of the Olympic Rally in Kiel. Right from the start, the team achieved special stage times among the world rally elite of the time. Press officer Herbert Völker initially assumed that the timekeeping had made a minute error and initially placed Röhrl at the back of the results lists. This was repeated several more times until the race organizers realized that a very special talent was taking part. With eleven best times, the previously unknown Röhrl shook up the elite and drove up to second place in the overall classification. Shortly before the end, however, the Capri's engine stopped working and it is still not clear how the duel between Walter Röhrl and the leader Jean-Pierre Nicolas would have ended.
From 1973 to 1987, Walter Röhrl was then active as a professional in Opel, Fiat, Porsche, Lancia and Audi cars, winning fourteen WRC rallies during this time. His four victories in the Monte Carlo Rally between 1980 and 1984 with four different brands (Fiat, Opel, Lancia and Audi) are outstanding. Even though Walter Röhrl ended his career as a professional racing driver in 1992, his performance and the vehicles he drove have long since gone down in motorsport history.
