I mentioned somewhere that Juha Kankkunen still owned every race car he's ever driven - it was a clause in his contract that he got to keep the cars he drove The cars are housed on his farm in Finland, this is the 1st time he has allowed them to be photographed This is his collection and you better have Kleenex handy, for some reason I don't see any ST165's around? http://www.insideline.com/features/photos/collection-of-a-lifetime-gallery.html
People forget that when the ST165 entered the WRC, Sainz was still up-and-coming, Juha Kankkunen already had two world titles (with Peugeot and Lancia in 86/87) and Bjorn Waldegaard was also a world champion in 1979 (Ford Escourt RS) Most of the early pics are of Juha and Bjorn - not Sainz Sainz won 2 WRC titles - in 1990 & 1992 Kankkunen won 4 WRC titles - in 1986, 1987, 1991, 1993 Facts and figures here -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_World_Rally_Championship_Drivers'_champions Here's one of Juha on his way to victory here in NZ in 1989 I think the fact that Juha defected to Lancia in 1991 and took the title with Lancia and then returned to Toyota to win again in 1993 has soured many Toyota fans opinion of him. Had he stayed Toyota would have dominated the WRC for 5 years running To me it looks like he drove for the highest bidder and the results are obvious, one of the 1st "proffesional million dollar sportsmen"
Thanks for the link and facts Stig, those pictures are truely amazing. As I see he loves to drive his 3rd gen Celica the most
"If you want to win, hire a Finn", I believe the saying in rally circles goes I was also surprised that he doesn't seem to have a 165 (particularly since he was the steerer on it's maiden WRC win), but that third-gen is freakin awesome :thumbsup:
Well that's not true any more - Sebastian Loeb (France) has won it 8 times in a row in a French car. Kankkunen and Makinen are joint 2nd with 4 titles each He never had much to say to reporters and I dunno the reason for not allowing anyone to photograph his cars. The article was written by someone doing reseach on the gen3 Celica, by the looks of the boot and engine I doubt it's even been driven outside in the last 25 years
fair point It hasn't - it had a money-no-object restoration done by Makela Auto Tuning in Finland then went straight into Juha's museum: http://www.mat.fi/n_index.php?nav=gallery_view&gallery=project1984toyotacelicaturbo&g=13 Here's a vid of another third-gen Group B monster restored by Makela: [video=youtube;IAZi3onPkQw]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=IAZi3onPkQw[/video]
:drool5 great write up, great collection, I love the video where the lads are like, 'let's strap this sucker in boys, it could launch' :lol, check out the dude with the keyboard tuning on the fly, this thing is a monster :twisted
Toyota Team Europe was (still is, actually) based in Cologne, Germany, so that makes sense on one level, but why you wouldn't label your gun driver/navigator combo's control panel in their own native language for ease and speed of access during competition is beyond me... I'd also reckon that row where it says Funk aren't buttons as such, judging by the numbers on them I'd hazard a guess and say they are aircraft-style circuit breakers?
