We spoke to Charlie on the phone. At the time, he told us he was 89 years old and his memory was not what it use to be. He shared a few bits of gold about the run and we thought we would list them here for you.
The story he told about the blown motor is actually this:
“We blew a head gasket about 150 ks out of Darwin. My navigator had a relative in Darwin, so we rang on his mobile phone. Hahahah … can you imagine that? Back then we would have all had the old Motorola brick. So, they rang that relative and got him to bring down a head gasket. By the time he turned up with the head gasket, I had the motor stripped down and ready to go.
Charlie had a plan. He knew his Mini couldn’t out run the exotic cars, but he knew his little Mini was a fuel miser. Charlie took a fuel tank from an outboard motor boat and hooked it in with the existing Mini tank. (We bet he wouldn’t get away with that now.) So at the start, all the cars would roar past him and, later in the day, he would over take a heap of them as they were filling up with fuel on the side of the road.
Charlie’s wife was going to be the Navigator during the race. A few days before the race she got sick and watched the race from her hospital bed. Sadly, about 4 months later, she passed away. The old story of the Tortoise and the Hare. 🙂
Charlie’s Mini was considered the underdog and everyone wanted to see the Mini Cooper S race. The “Peoples Car”, as the old Mini Cooper S became know, had Charlie leave first, every day after the first day. Not because he was the fastest of course, but because he was a crowd favourite. Everyone cheered the old Mini on. Apparently Allan Moffat let this happen.
Charlie says he has a bit of video. He is going to make a copy and send it up for us. I’ll keep you posted.
