It's hard to believe it's more than quarter of a century since those Audi Quattros banged their way around New Zealand roads in the hands of some of the greats of world rallying. Hannu Mikkola, Walter Rohrl, Stig Blomqist and Michelle Mouton piloted these beasts from 1983 - 85. All three Audi works entries retired in 1983 but Stig Blomqist scored the victory in 1984 on the way to his World Rally Championship.
1985 saw the short wheelbase and massaged S4 driven by Rohrl and Blomqist take on the Peugeot 205 Turbo 16s of Vatanen and Salonen for supremacy. The works entries of Toyota for Kankkunen and Waldegaard, and works Nissans for Kirkland, Mehta and Kiwi Cook would play a support role to the 4WD turbo monsters in a year which probably was the high point of the Rally of NZ for top entries.
With my first video camera I took to the backroads for the whole 4 days and shot what was possible - remarkably closeup footage of the drivers and teams at service parks, in addition to some shaky hand-held action images of the leaders as they roared by. 27 years later I have finally cut the dross (there was plenty of that!) and come up with 4 short films - one for each day of the Rally of NZ 1985. I will be posting them on YouTube and linking them to this thread for anyone interested in this great era of Rally of NZ, I hope you enjoy.
Murray