After three years of hassle and hustle, the World Cup Rally from London to Cape Town is all-systems-go for the January lst start out of the Houses of Parliament. The plan is to romp down the full length of Africa inside 30 days.
 
Organsiser Philip Young is working on two route options to avoid Middle East trouble spots - after a ferry from Venice to Alexandria, the rally will take another ferry from Egypt across the Red Sea to Saudi Arabia, drive their coast road to Jeddah, and then re-cross the Red Sea to Sudan...but up his sleeve is a plan to avoid this with an opening of a military border direct from south Egypt into Sudan, providing Lord Steel and others helping the diplomacy prove persuasive.
 
So far 40 cars are in the line up, with everything from a Renault 4 to a Porsche 911, and in between, Francis Tuthill, who like Young first set out in long distance rallying on the 1977 London to Sydney, who is has forsaken 911s in order to navigate an old Toyota pick-up truck. Any day now an MG Maestro entry is due to arrive, having had the magic wand waved over it by past Abingdon BL competitions department mechanics...can this last hurrah for BL survive 8000 miles against the clock?

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