NICO ROSBERG - A WORLD CHAMPION IN EVERY RESPECT

So Nico Rosberg is Formula One World Champion and has immediately announced his retirement from the sport. Well done Nico! A very ‘brave’ decision, but I think it’s the right one for him.

I have admired Nico Rosberg throughout his F1 career as a ‘racer’ and a thoroughly nice guy. At the 2010 Australian F1 GP, I was hanging around Red Bull waiting to interview Sebastian Vettel and Christian Horner, and Nico came in to see if he could speak with Vettel. It was obvious the crowd made that impossible, and he started a conversation with me. When it became clear I was a close, personal friend of Stirling Moss, he warmed to the conversation and we discussed a whole range of issues in just 15 minutes.

As I thought we were finishing the conversation he said: “Would you like to come into our pit and have a look at the cars?” I accepted immediately and he personally took me through the team garage, introducing me as a good friend of Stirling Moss.

He was gracious, friendly and businesslike. Time to return to work, he escorted me from the garage. As I left I thought, “What a great guy, being so nice to a nobody.”

The other thing I admire about Nico is his ‘take no prisoners’ racing style, and his sportsmanship. In that regard I have lifted the following text from my friend Joe Saward’s F1 Blog to illustrate the true mutual respect he shared with teammate Lewis Hamilton:

After the race in Abu Dhabi on Sunday, Lewis Hamilton said the following, in his first public statement after the race. “A big congratulations to Nico, of course, his first world championship. Good job, man”.

Nico said: “I also want to say congrats to Lewis, you did a great season, great competitor, massively quick always. Congrats, always tough to beat you.”

A few moments later, Lewis added: “I did everything that I could, particularly towards the end and obviously Nico had a very, very clean year without any real issues to be honest and that’s why we sit in this position right now. But he did a fantastic job, so big congratulations to him, it’s a great feeling to win the world championship and I look forward to fighting with him next year.”

Sporting? Both men were. The stuff written since then is 24-carat crap.

During his F1 career Nico won 23 Grands Prix, capturing 30 pole positions. He is the only driver to win the Monaco GP three times in a row; and the only driver to win seven GPs in a row. A pretty enviable record, and I think it’s great that he has decided to retire at the absolute peak of his sporting life.

LAND ROVER'S LONG TAIL

The location of this tale is not important, it was just a long way from anywhere, in what Australians call ‘The Outback’.

It involves three vehicles, and a number of people not usually seen in these conditions, which was essentially a dry and arid, trackless desert, with temperatures soaring above 45C (113F).

 

The three vehicles were all Land Rovers - two with distinctive army camouflage paint jobs, and the third, a more civilized Land Rover 110 station wagon, equipped with rations, survival gear and most importantly, air conditioning.

The group was sitting in the shade of a large Casuarina tree (also known as the desert oak), and included two professional test drivers, an army guide and skilled survival expert, and a cine cameraman.

As the sun neared its noon zenith and the temperature climbed, the group watched as a battered Toyota Landcruiser trayback appeared out of a humungous dust cloud. As the dust settled, the driver, a somewhat ancient Australian aboriginal, and two younger indigenous men climbed out of the cabin laughing and joking.

The old fella, a Pitjantjatjara elder casually strolled to the group of white men and taking his cigarette out of his mouth said: “You wanted a Perentie? We got you Perentie. Okay boys.”

The two younger men jumped into the back of the truck, where a huge Perentie lizard lay, mesmerized and sunbaking in the blinding sun. The boys grabbed the almost three metre (about 9 feet) long reptile, struggling to get him over the sides of the truck, and unceremoniously dropped him next to the men, where he stayed stationary, tranquilised by the desert heat.

“He’s all yours,” said the elder, and with that they climbed into the cabin of the Toyota and roared off into the desert, the sounds of their laughter trailing off as they created a new dust cloud.

The somewhat dumbfounded white men stared at the slumbering lizard, quickly trying to figure out what to do next. They were in this remote location to film the two Army Land Rovers for a documentary film commissioned by the Australian Defence Department to celebrate the delivery to army of its new infantry vehicles.

The cameraman spoke first, “Right, let’s start filming. Let’s get the Land Rovers in position down the track, and then we can get the lizard in shot.” The test drivers cranked up the Landies, and the cameraman grabbed his Betacam, but still the lizard slumbered on.

The men had asked the local Pitjantatiara tribe if it was possible to find a Perentie lizard, to include in the shoot, and later to be edited into the film at the appropriate scenes. The Aboriginals thought this was a strange request, because they usually saw Perenties as a source of bush tucker, not the star of a film.

As the group positioned the Land Rovers down the track, to drive into view, they had to try and get the huge reptile moving, to bring some active fauna into shot, but still he slept on. Using the two-way CB radio, the army soldier called up the tribe’s base camp, and asked how they might get the lizard to move.

The man at the other end of the wireless communication said: “I dunno, maybe you can poke him with a stick.

"We like ‘em keep still, so we can kill him and cook him.”

So in the end, after the said device was engaged to get the huge reptile moving, there were just 60 frames shot of the lizard moving slowly across the desert sand, and then off into the spinifex scrub, to escape those pesky white men.

The film was eventually used to great effect however, to highlight an important contract for the Australian Army, and began a few years earlier.

Kim Beazley (left) with members of the ADF

In 1986 the Australian Minister for Defence, Kim Beazley, signed a landmark agreement with JRA Limited for the company to supply the Australian Defence Forces with locally-built Land Rover 110 models, in both 4x4 and 6x6 configurations. The program was named, Project Perentie.

The reason it was a landmark decision, is that the Australian Government chose a newly-established Australian company, to source and locally-build vehicles with a high degree of local content, specifically designed for use in Australia’s trackless outback terrain.

It was significant that in the 4x4 category the Land Rovers beat both Mercedes-Benz (300GD) and Jeep in the tender process.

In the 6x6 category, Land Rover beat out the Mercedes-Benz Unimog.

Another benefit of the Land Rovers was that both versions were easily transportable by air in RAAF Hercules aircraft, without their canvas roofs being lowered.

Land Rover in the UK had authorized JRA limited to submit a tender for supply, however, the non-Land Rover content surprisingly included engines, and in the case of the 6x6 models, the entire rear wheel drive assembly was designed, developed in Australia, by JRA's skilled engineering chief, Ray Habgood.

Equally important to the process of winning the tender was the energy and committment by JRA's Deputy Managing Director, Jack Heaven, who was determined that it would be Land Rovers that would continue in service with the Australian Army, so he issued Habgood with the following edict: "We are not authorised to fail!"

The Australian-developed 6x6 also utilized a unique twin leaf spring rear suspension, designed in such a way that when one wheel was fully extended, the other wheel rose, maximizing the vehicle footprint on undulating terrain.

The winning specification used a 3.9L Isuzu diesel engine, mated to the Land Rover transmission, with locally-sourced suspension components. The Isuzu engine for the 6x6 version was turbocharged.

Ray Habgood had also sourced higher-strength half shafts, and modified the transfer case internals, instantly correcting a common complaint about Land Rover reliability.

The upper body structures included fabric roofs, and metal bodies, designed as ambulances, fully-mobile RAEME workshops and communications vehicles.

A series was also built for the Australian SAS as reconnaissance and rapid deployment vehicles. The SAS particularly appreciated the fact that with canvas roof lowered, the Land Rover was a low profile vehicle.

The contract, originally for 2500 4x4 and 400 6x6; was later increased to a total of 3700 vehicles.

As supply commenced, the Australian Army envisaged a ten year life for the vehicles, however they proved so popular with troops in service, every effort was made to keep the Perentie Land Rovers operational. Even to the point of completely rebuilding well-worn examples. Service life of many Perentie Land Rovers has exceeded 25 years.
That’s a long tail.

A 'MINI' RANGE ROVER? NOT QUITE

Was there ever a mini Range Rover? Well, yes there was a contender for that title, and it didn’t come from Britain. It was Russian!

Range Rover, the world’s most accomplished, upmarket 4x4, was developed by my dear friend, the late Spen King and his cohort, Gordon Bashford in 1957 (right). It was never intended to be a luxury SUV, just much more habitable than the ultra-utlitarian Land Rovers.

In service the off-road performance of the Range Rover was so remarkable, thanks to its advanced, all-coil, long travel suspension, that it became the estate car of choice for some of Britain’s richest land owners.

In the early 70s, the Rover company had the good sense to see its potential, and began the process of adding luxury features. As they say, the rest is history.

However, half a world away in the industrial city of Toglietti, Russia, Vladimir Solovyev began development in 1972 of a vehicle he described as a ‘Renault 5 on a Land Rover chassis’, but his first effort, a roofless prototype, was considered much too basic.

Using a lot of carryover mechanicals from Lada’s Fiat 124-based sedan, engineer Valery Popovitch, took note of the Range Rover’s all-coil suspension, and greater level of creature comforts, and in 1974 designed the VAZ-2121, which was later named the Niva.

The Niva was the world’s first monocoque off-road vehicle, and Popovitch engineered impressive levels of body stiffness, which combined with the independent front suspension, delivered excellent ride and handling, as well as outstanding off-road ability.

The ‘civilised’ Lada Niva (VAZ-2121) began to infiltrate a number of markets around the world in small numbers, and by 1979 had developed a solid reputation for reliability, toughness and off-road capability.

Leyland Australia began imports of the first Range Rovers Down Under in early 1977, and the management was alerted to the Lada Niva by an entreprenurial New Zealand company called Amalgamated Marketing.

They had begun discussions to import the Niva to New Zealand, and Leyland Australia decided to take that one step further by bringing the Niva to Australia, where it saw the vehicle as a cheaper and logical complement to Range Rover.

It was a marketing move which might have enjoyed great success, but there was a sticking point. Once AutoVaz was aware of the interest, the Russian managers told the Australian company they would only agree to the importation of the Niva, if the company agreed to also import a significant quantity of Lada sedans.

But, the Lada sedan was definitely a deal breaker. To describe the car as ‘ancient’ would be doing it a favour!

The Lada 1500 (or Zhiguli VAZ-2103) was based on the FIAT 124 Special, which in 1967 won the European Car of The Year; and was designed by its chief engineer, Oscar Montabone. The FIAT 124 had a very roomy interior, lightweight construction, four wheel disc brakes and rear suspension with a Panhard Rod.

It’s almost impossible to ascertain exactly how many FIAT 124s were built, because FIAT managed to sell the design not only to Russia (where 19.3 million cars were alone produced by AutoVaz); but also to Turkey, Bulgaria, Spain and India. It was a very successful car because of its simplicity and robust design.

The Lada version featured some significant differences. First, the thickness of the sheet metal was increased to make it able to cope with Russia’s awful roads; it was sold with a crank handle in case the battery died in the Siberian winters; and an auxiliary fuel pump (for the same reason).

Because of the thicker sheet metal, the Lada weighed 110kg more than the FIAT, which severely affected its performance, but to quote a phrase famous in the Australian outback – it was built like a brick shithouse!

To convince Leyland Australia to import the sedan, AutoVaz sent a completely built-up sedan, painted a hideous red-orange, plus a complete car (unassembled) in a wooden crate!

The Lada-Leyland Australia negotiations went nowhere, but in 1990 one of Leyland Australia’s employees purchased the Lada 1500 sedan; plus the ‘car in a crate’, from the company for a thousand bucks.

That Lada eventually clocked up just under 200,000km; before the owner needed to open the crate to retrieve spare parts, to keep the car on the road!

The Lada 1500 may not have been pretty, but it was built to last!

The Niva story continued however, with AutoVaz striking a joint venture deal with General Motors in 2002, which briefly produced a 4-door Chevy version.

The Lada Niva is still in production, and probably its most famous owner is Vladimir Putin, who acquired one in 2009!