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An evening with Johnstone Syer - 6 November
Johnstone Syer (centre front) poses with some of the group from the club.
The
temperatures outside were dropping fast on Wednesday 6 November in
Perth, but inside the Royal George Hotel some 20 classic car owners and
enthusiasts gathered to hear the entertaining, often amusing, stories
of a life of rallying across many countries around the globe in the
sixties seventies and eighties. Johnstone Syer has sat alongside many
well known rally drivers including Roger Clark, Tony Pond, Andrew Cowan and many other of the period, guiding them on the route
to success.
Johnstone
started in rallying back in 1956 on a Dunfermiline Car Club Sunday
afternoon rally with his brother Bill in a Morris 1000, one of
the first without the split screen. This was quickly followed by
teaming up with Tommy Crawford in a VW Beetle. Johnstone's first 'big'
event was with Bobby Crawford on the 1959 RAC rally when
it started from Blackpool, headed north to Poolewe, back to Wales
and after four days and three nights finished at the Crystal
Palace in London.
Having
caught the rallying 'bug' Johnstone turned professional,joining Rover,
and his first event was with Stirling car dealer Logan
Morrison, a famous motorsport driver who
won the Scottish Rally Drivers Championship in the 1960s. Sitting in an
MGA 1500 soft top rattling through forest stages must have been scary.
Now
Johnstone gets to see the world again with Logan as part of the team
challenging the Acropolis Rally. The team were to take the brand
new P6 Rover 2000, but unfortunately that was not quite ready in time
for the event and they took the old 3 litre saloon P5. His memory
of that event was watching one of the rear wheels overtake them as it
came off the car! The car did not fare well on three wheels and
dropped to the ground. not a good start for Johnstone's endurance
rallying career.
1964 brought the chance to sit
beside Roger Clark on
the Alpine Rally, officially known as the Coupe
des Alpes. Joining Tony Pond in a Talbot Horizon on the Tour of Ypres
racing around the canals, found Johnstone's Scottish accent leading to
mixed understandings. A 'Fast Right' call was misinterpreted as 'Flat
Right'. The pair managed to clear a bridge over one canal, but not so
good over the next, ending in the canal. Tony wondered
where Johnstone had gone as he saw Johnstone's helmet, which had been
ripped off in the accident, floating along upside down outside the car!
Johnstone
teamed up with Brian Culcheth on some 75 rallies, with one in Jamaica
being an event he remembers well. He was to fly out on BOAC, but the
car a Triumph 2.5PI needed a new windscreen. Could Johnstone bring one
out as hand luggage. Not a problem in early seventies Britain. Try
boarding with a windscreen under your arm nowadays!
 The pair
teamed up again for the 1970 World Cup Rally, starting in London. The
European route headed to Sofia, then across to Lisbon where the cars
were shipped to Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. The crews, mechanics and 20
tons of spares were flown in a Brittania across the Atlantic. The
restart took the cars down through Argentina, back up through Chile,
Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Panama, and north into Mexico. A big
problem with fuel with high enough octane, the local variety struggling
to reach 80 RON .
Mixing with aviaition fuel seemed to do the trick and
allowed some 'spririted' motoring.. The route crossed many high peaks
where seven or eight days were spent above 10000 feet, reaching 16000
feet on one occasion. Pass the oxygen was a common call to keep the
crew from passing out!
  On
the 1968 London Sydney Johnstone experienced being a target when he was
shot at in Yugoslavia during the recce. He got used to this on the
Paris Dakar which he took part in five times with Andrew Cowan.
Eventually stopped running as too many competitors, including
Johnstone, were being shot at as they crossed the Sahara region.
These tales and many more still had us rivetted after 2
hours of listening. A great man with so many experiences we will have
to ask him back again when those who were unable to make it this time
can come along.
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| Updated 7 November 2013
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