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The Minis had asserted their handling and good traction capacity, winning the Monte-Carlo rally twice: in 1964, with Paddy Hopkirk, and 1965, with Timo Mäkinen. Thus was born a true legend of ‘giant killers’, as the small British cars left behind much more powerful adversaries.
For its part, Citroën had won the 1959 edition of the Monte-Carlo Rally with an ID 19, the model that in Spain was popularly known as ‘Tiburón’. While indisputable, it was a curious triumph. The story goes that its driver, Paul Coltelloni (of the Paris-Île de France team), had ordered a violet DS 19 with a white roof for his wife, but he was given an ID 19 in a different color.
So he made the decision to leave with him (accompanied by two co-pilots, something unusual but allowed) called Claude Desrosiers and Pierre Alexandre.
The ID, while slower than the DS, was said to be more reliable as its hydraulics operated only on the suspension system. On the contrary, in the DS 19 both the change, as well as the braking and steering, also depended on the hydraulic system, and at that time they suffered quite a few breakdowns. The fact is that, by a very small difference, that private ID 19 gave Citroën and its emblematic model a very notorious and indisputable victory.
Seven years later, in 1966, the Citroën team, led by the unforgettable René Cotton (the man to whom the signing of the double chevron owes the start of his great debut in competition) seeks a second victory in Monte-Carlo. It must be recognized that, a priori, the famous DS was not a car especially suitable for competition, except for its fantastic stability. But the truth is that between the end of the 1950s and the beginning of the 1960s, he obtained (in addition to the aforementioned victory on the Mount) many triumphs in private hands. Citroën, which supported them indirectly and discreetly, decides to officially enter competition in the sixties. And in 1964 he places Cotton at the head of the ‘Service Competition Citroën’. René Cotton was a team leader of enormous prestige, very intelligent, considered an excellent strategist, knowledgeable about every last letter of the regulations and a tireless worker when planning a rally: he went over and over the stages until there was not a single detail left without control. And the result of that ability is that the DS is one of the great legends of rallying, with a spectacular track record.
But let’s get back to our story. In that snowy edition, the thirty-fifth Monte-Carlo, the Mini Coopers from Makinen-Easter, Aaltonen-Ambrose and Hopkirk-Lidon, reached the end of the test occupying the first three places in that order. It was an indisputable success and with a huge publicity impact for the Mini, after beating much more powerful cars.
However, the news breaks: the three English cars of the BMC team, led by Stuart Tuner, are disqualified after the arrival by the stewards following the report of the technical stewards who have carried out the relevant checks. The reason is ‘lighting device not in compliance with the requirements of article 257 of Annex J of the International Sporting Code’. In all three cars, the dipped beam lights were simply fog lights, a mounting allowed in Great Britain, but not in France, where single-filament bulbs were prohibited and the main optics had to have two filaments, one for the headlights. long and one for the crossing. The dual-filament (high/low) headlights had been replaced with high beam-only headlights with an iodine bulb, a mounting not available on Cooper Ss sold at dealerships. At night the superiority of this system was indisputable, but after the verifications prior to the test, nothing had been indicated about the non-compliance of the device.
Rumor spread that the English team had cheated, changing optics after pre-test checks. But this was a debatable theory because the iodine lamps were recognizable to the naked eye and the commissioners would have noticed. Eight other British competitors, including Roger Clark’s official Ford Cortina (located in fourth place) or those of Vic Elford and Bengt Söderstrom, were also disqualified for the same reason. Turner protested against the decision, considering it more political than technical, but to no avail.
Thus, Toivonen-Mikander’s Citroën DS 21, registered in Group 1 (series cars), rose from fifth to first place. As for Lucette Pointet, with the suspension of her Citroën DS 21 badly deteriorated after colliding with a journalists’ car that was coming in the opposite direction, she won the Ladies’ Cup because Rosemary Smith had been disqualified due to the issue of headlights.
Without a doubt, it was a triumph that did not leave Pauli Toivonen (the father of the ill-fated Henry Toivonen) with a very bad taste, who even boycotted the official ceremony and will no longer race for Citroën. Then Mini, although they had promised not to return, won Monte-Carlo in 1967 and Citroën eight more times, but that, you know, is another story. And the famous ‘Monte’ is full of them.