It's been forty-one years since a brigade of private and works Minis first charged through this part of the world, conquering the impossibly grueling Coupe des Alpes Rally and claiming a spot in the hearts and garages of automotive enthusiasts in England and beyond for generations to come. From where we sit, hustling over one-and-a-half-lane country roads and puttering through centuries-old villages, it's hard to imagine anything's changed in those four decades.
We're here to run a quartet of Minis-three new and one vintage-through a small portion of the original Alpine Rally, which abused cars, drivers, and navigators for some 2400 miles in three segments, including two dozen special stages on roads open to the public, eight harrowing hill-climbs over mountain passes, and a brutal seventeen-lap stint on the Monza road-race circuit in Italy. Easily the most picturesque of all international road competitions, the Coupe des Alpes also proved a vengeful beast. Of the eighty-seven cars that departed the rally's start/finish in the seaside town of Marseille on a Thursday evening in June 1963, only twenty-four would make it back on the following Tuesday morning. When the dust settled, the diminutive Mini, a newcomer to such competition, had made a memorable showing, winning the touring-car category, the women's Coupe des Dames category, and the coveted team prize.... Read full article