Ken Davies interviews John Davenport – Images courtesy of John Davenport

Once famously called ‘high speed office managers’ by Stuart Turner, and he should know as he was one of the best, co-drivers tend to possess the one thing that says they are not lacking in little grey cells. This normally means they realised at an early stage in their career that stimulating their adrenal gland by their own efforts behind the wheel are either ineffective, prohibitively expensive or both! The solution is to apply their unique set of intellectual skills to make a rally car, driven by someone else, go quickly so that they can sit there and enjoy it. But artist, masochist or just plain mad, what really makes a co-driver take all the risks but just a small part of the glory?

“You are sitting, strapped into the passenger seat of a hugely powerful car that is about to be driven down a most unsuitable road at improbable speed - in a snowstorm! You are there of your own free will, looking forward to the experience. Most sane people reckon you are several am-rods short of a full rotating assembly. So what makes rally co-drivers do it?” A brief anecdote from top-flight professional co-driver and journalist John Davenport when interviewed by Motor Sport magazine for an article on co-drivers in November 1997.

During his successful career Davenport sat with some of the fastest gravel and tarmac drivers in the world, and he too became one of the best co-drivers during the 1960s and ‘70s, but there was so much more to ‘JD’. As a journalist be became respected for his factual reporting skills and sometimes irreverent and pithy column in Autosport that simply revealed the sport as it was, warts and all. Then there was the Team Manager role that he performed in both international racing and rallying. In fact, the variety of entries on John’s CV serve to illustrate the broad breadth of his versatility and virtuosity.

Born in Hertfordshire, John went to grammar school in Swindon, before reading mathematics at Merton College Oxford and started rallying in his second year, where his contemporaries included Max Mosley, John Brown and Robin Herd. He then began training to be a Chartered Patent Agent in The City, only to be offered the job of Rallies Editor at Motoring News at the end of 1962, leaving his training to take a sabbatical that never ended. He remained at Motoring News for three years during which time he had various works drives including Simo Lampinen – Saab and Triumph, Tony Cox – Rover, Brian Culcheth and Sir Peter Moon, John’s brother-in-law, at BMC, competing on all the major international rallies. John also reported on national races, hill climbs and other UK events and produced Motor Sport’s first-ever rally column.

In 1966, John accepted a full works drive at Ford co-driving for Vic Elford which meant leaving Motoring News and going freelance and later that year Paddy McNally appointed him as Rallies Editor of Autosport, a post he held for ten years. During that time, he had works contracts as a co-driver for Ford, Lancia, Saab, Porsche, Renault Alpine, BMW, Fiat, Peugeot and VW driving with, Vic Elford, Ove Andersson, Leo Cella, Hannu Mikkola, Timo Makinen, Markku Alen, Achim Warmbold, Tony Fall, Pentti Airikkala, Harry Kallstrom, Sandro Munari and Rauno Aaltonen.

John has competed in all the major rallies, won all the British internationals including the Gulf London, Mintex, Scottish, Welsh and RAC Rallies, won the Portuguese Rally twice, was second in Monte Carlo and won the 1000 Lakes, Spanish and Italian Rallies. He also won the Manx Rally, Britain's only pace note event, three times with different drivers. In 1976, he joined the RACMSA as Motor Sport Executive with responsibility for re-organising the Grand Prix and RAC Rally press offices and also navigated the Green Paper on rallying through Parliament which saw the government create the Rally Authorisation Department.

At the end of 1976, John joined British Leyland to manage their competition plans which included race programmes for the Jaguar 5.3 Coupe and Dolomite Sprint, together with the TR7 rally programme. He worked for BL for ten years during which time his teams won the British Saloon Car Championship on three occasions and the Rover 3500 was developed into a competitive Group A race and rally car to the point where it won the 1986 ETCC.

In conjunction with Williams GP Engineering, Austin Rover Motorsport developed the MG Metro 6R4, a new Group B 4WD rally car which finished third in its debut on the 1985 RAC Rally. The 6R4 is the only Group B car still winning rallies today. During all this time, John represented the world's car manufacturers on the FISA Technical Committee and Homologation Working Group, also sitting on the FIA Manufacturers’ Commission when formed in 1986. John left Austin Rover when they closed their competition department in 1987 and concentrated on writing books and organising classic car rallies. He has since competed as co-driver in several classic car rallies as well as in modern rallies such as the 1995 RAC Rally. He also undertook consultancy work for Rothmans on their Rallye Raid programme and Audi Germany on their entry in the DTM. In addition, he worked with the VLM team in 1991 when they won the BTCC, and for Griffin Motorsport in the British Group N series, both with BMW M3s. Between 1993 and 1997, he ran and co-ordinated the Classic Touring Car series in Britain which ran alongside the British Touring Car Championship.

Ever the journalist, John has been an occasional contributor to his original employers at Autosport, Motorsport News and Motor Sport. In 1998, he competed in the Tour Auto with Maxwell Beaverbrook and subsequently team-managed his Porsche 911 GT2 to overall victory in the GTR Euro series and winner of the GT category at the Vallelunga 6-Hour race. Over the last fifteen years, he has worked in collaboration with world-famous rally photographer Reinhard Klein, and between them they have published a series of stunning books on the Safari Rally, Group B cars and the Audi Quattro, as well as a series of history books covering rallying 1946 to 1996.

Married, with two daughters and two grandchildren, John has lived in the same English country house for forty-three years and lists his other hobbies as computing, reading, cycling, walking and going to the theatre and cinema. Enjoy our interview.

How did you make your start in motor sport?
Sitting quietly studying in my room at Oxford in 1960 when a chap called Colin McEachran (now QC and senior member of the Scottish Bar) dashed in and asked if I could read an Ordnance Survey map. A week later I was sitting his aunt’s Austin A30 doing the Intervarsity Rally. We finished 21st out of 22 finishers and I was hooked.

What has been the best moment in your motor sport career?
I could be cheeky and say that there have been so many that it is impossible to choose, but it is hard to select one. Winning the 1000 Lakes in 1974 should be top but I remember the feeling of dread knowing that I had to somehow survive the all-night drinking session that followed AND write a full Autosport report to be on the first flight out of Jyvaskyla in the morning. So I guess that the complete euphoria felt when Tony Pond and Rob Arthur finished third with our 6R4 on the 1985 RAC Rally must be my nomination. This was the culmination of four years of hard work and that very much helped to add to the spirit of the moment.

What has been the worst moment?
Losing the Monte Carlo Rally for the second time with Ove Andersson when the gearbox failed on our Alpine Renault A110 going up from St Sauveur to Beuil in 1972. We only missed winning it in 1967 with a Lancia Fulvia when Rauno Aaltonen and Henry Liddon beat us by 13 seconds after the last two runs over the Turini. I don’t know what stroke it was they pulled but I am hoping that Rauno will tell me before either he or I go to the final time control at the Pearly Gates.

Which event did/do you most look forward to?
All the rallies in the 1960 and 70s were enjoyable adventures if you were a young man who enjoyed quick cars, good food and the company of people with similar inclinations. Perhaps, being a lazy sort of fellow, I looked forward more than anything to the RAC Rally for which you did not have to do a recce nor copy up books of pace notes on the eve of the rally. Of course, there was always a service schedule to be worked out but, until servicing restrictions came in and up you had to go round the route in the ten days before getting agreements to use garage forecourts and people’s drives, that too was quite pleasant. I mean sitting in a four-star hotel marking up maps and ordering refreshments on room service cannot be all that bad.

Congratulations, you've won the lottery, what car do you rush out to buy?
A new car, evidently. At one time or another, I have either owned or been loaned a wide variety of cars. At Lancia, there was even a fantastic month when I was driving around Italy and France in a Ferrari 246 GT, one of two being used for pre-Stratos assessment. My current car is a Mk5 Golf 2.0 GTD which with its 140bhp is probably quicker than most of the cars that I rallied during the first ten years of my career. It is good value all things being considered but, with that lottery money burning a hole in my pocket and not needing to have a car that does 48mpg, I would probably go with a BMW 340i.

What are your future motor sport plans?
No active involvement other than my role in helping to run the annual Eifel Rallye Festival and naturally I hope to continue writing books about rallying and racing.

Which competition car has impressed you most?
Of the ones that I competed in, I can say that the BMW 2002 Tii fitted with BMW’s own F2 16-valve engine that I co-drove with Achim Warmbold in 1975 was a revelation. I am convinced that if BMW had kept in the rally game at that time and fully developed the car, then Ford Escorts and Fiat 131 Abarths would not have won so much in the latter half of the 1970s and early 1980s.
Of the cars that I did not compete in but where I, as a privileged person, was offered a ride, I would nominate the jaunt that Tony Pond gave me in a 6R4 in Corsica during a Michelin test session in 1986. We covered the five-kilometre test road of bumpy, twisty tarmac just two seconds quicker than the works Peugeot 205 T16s had done. I am not entirely sure but I think Tony might have been trying to impress me.

What's the most entertaining event you’ve ever been involved in?
Odd question. I guess that the Eifel Rallye Festival is the one where I have seen most people in one place being entertained by rallying. Forty thousand people in and around a small market town looking at 150 old rally cars is quite remarkable. I think the largest crowd I have ever entertained personally would have been at one of those Ford Forums that we toured the country with in the 1970s. Or if I am looking for an event that entertained me the most, then I would probably opt for the East African Safari of 1973 – one of most incredible adventures – in which I was an active participant with Hannu Mikkola in a Ford Escort RS1600.

What is your most effective or personal asset?
These days it’s an iPhone but when I was rallying in the pre-digital days it was a Heuer eventing stop watch. You wore it on the wrist, it had a nice big dial with a full-size sweep hand, and by using it there was no chance of clocking in during the wrong minute on difficult sections.

What advice would you offer the aspiring driver or co-driver entering the sport?
Despite early setbacks of which there are many in rallying, decide whether you do like doing whatever it is you have chosen and, if you don’t like it, change your sport.

Who has been your greatest motoring inspiration?
If I were to nominate anyone for that role it would have to be Henry Liddon. I first met Henry when he was co-driving for Paddy Hopkirk. On the Tulip Rally of 1963, he lent me the first pace-notes I had ever seen and, though I made a bit of a cock-up reading them, I was soon proficient in their use. In later years, Henry also taught me the trade of making road books and creating service plans that was to stand me in good stead in my years with Lancia and Ford.

Tell us something surprising about yourself?
As someone who studied mathematics to university level, my mental arithmetic is poor. During a rally, I always used to make a point of writing down stage and control times and subtracting them using paper and pen rather than trying to figure it out in my head and getting the answer wrong.

Just one final question please … What will we find on the Davenport car CD or iPlayer?
One CD that I listen to quite a lot in the car is Peter Ustinov’s ‘GP of Gibraltar’. As for music, I choose from two areas, opera (Mozart, Rossini and Verdi) and jazz (Miles Davis, Dave Brubeck, Stan Getz and Dizzy Gillespie). Just recently, I have been hooked by a CD from the King’s Singers ‘The Triumphs of Oriana’.

Thanks John and we look forward to seeing you at Castle Combe for Rallyday 2017 on Saturday 23rd September.