Cannonball Rallye Europe (1981)
I can find almost no information about this event. The story below was based on the information from this page written in German. The author of this page participated in the 1981 and 1982 Cannonball Europe races but I could not find his name.
Having followed the US Cannonball races, our author was captivated by an advertisement for the first Cannonball Europe he saw in Playboy magazine.
Here is a poor translation:
LET HER RIP!
The latest illegal motor race of the world, the American "Cannonball Express", has got a European variant. Between 25 and 30 April 1981, a maximum of 99 teams will race 3500 kilometers across our continent. The start is at the North Sea coast, the destination is somewhere in Southern Spain and will be announced only one week before beginning. The rule for participation and victory in the 1st Cannonball Rallye Europa, which does not know any class division, is just as simple as it is simple: the fastest win. The note in the call for tenders, the drivers have to keep to the respective road traffic regulations, reads itself almost like a humoristic contribution. After all, the winner is waving 10,000 marks.
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He secured himself an entry into the race and was now considering what vehicle to use for the race.
At the time our author worked in IT and Mercedes-Benz was one of his customers.
He managed to charm an assistant to a Mercedes department head, who was purchasing her own Mercedes Mercedes-Benz 380SL (W107), to enter the race with him and use her car.
The race was to start on April 25, 1981 in Stovring, in the far north of Denmark, which was a quiet place at that time of year, until the arrival of around 100 vehicles that were participating in the race.
Our author recollects models from Mercedes, Porsche, BMW, Opel, Ford and Volkswagen, and a Lotus Super 7 or Morgan. He also notes the presence of another Mercedes, a 450SE ute (W116)!
Having heard of the US races, our author decided on a strategy of he and his co-driver pretending to be just married and heading home, and they dressed appropriately.
The race started at 10 pm and they progressed through Denmark at a restrained pace due to the lack of motorways.
Once across the border into Germany they could drive flat out. They travelled through Hamburg, Hannover, Kassel Frankfurt and then crossed into France at Strasbourg.
Travelling through France to the Mediterranean was slow.
They found that side winds caused the Mercedes' windows to repeatedly slip out of their seals a tthe upper edge of the hardtop, which caused a lot of noise at speeds over 200 km/h. The solution was to back off, and run the (power) windows down a little then back up again, and they did this many times.
They ate chocolate bars and muesli and drank orange juice.
From Marseile they went on to the Spanish border at Narbonne. Here the field was widely dispersed, and competitors drove their own race against the clock and fatique.
The motorway ended at Alicante and headed to Granada. From Murcia our team decided to drive across the mountains to Granada and Malaga. Some drove via the coast and regretted it.
At Motril they joined the coastal road and were within 150 km of the finish which was at Atalaya Park Hotel, at Marbella.
They reached the finish in 24th place after 25 hours of driving, having travelled a distance of over 3,500 km.
The winning team was from Hamburg and drove a Mercedes-Benz/AMG 500SE (W126) that was fitted with an additional 90 litre fuel tank. They reportedly only had to refuel a few times (using two fuel pumps), compared to our author's approximately 8 fuel stops. [According to another source, the winner may have been a 500SEL and it averaged over 180 km/h]
A reader, Jonas, kindly provided these amazing photos from the start in Stovring.
We can now see some of the cars that participated including a BMW M1, Porsche 924 Turbo, Lamborghini Espada, Ferrari 308, and various Porsches and Mercedes-Benzes – even the W116 ute.
Another reader, Christina, wrote to me about her late father's entry in the 1981 Cannonball Europe.
Christina writes:
My dad and his friend drove my fathers Morgan Plus 8. My dad was just a regular truck driver, so not a wealthy man, but he loved anything that had tires and an engine.
They started in Denmark, where it was snowing and the wind blew the snow through the gaps between the buttons of the Morgan's snap-on fabric roof. They tried to keep the snow out by closing the gaps with duct tape.
In Spain the weather was unbearably hot. They finished the race, arrived in Marbella where there was a gala dinner at the "Robinson Club" hotel. My dad and his friend did not own a suit at the time – or ever, if I really think about it – but they went to that dinner, wearing clean and nearly new blue jeans and each a t-shirt with the Bavarian coat of arms on it. Plus the biggest grins you can imagine!
They won a special prize for being the "most original team".
For the rest of his life after that, he loved to tell that story – what an adventure!