Winning Ford Cortina turned into powerful advertising item

The 1976 Safari Rally Winner, Joginder Singh and David Doig the finishing ramp at Kenyatta Conference Centre.

Photo credit: File | Nation Media Group

What you need to know:

  • Ford were proud of Hughes who later served as the chairman of the Safari Rally, as was the tradition then of tapping former competitors to transit into management for posterity.
  • Ford Kenya was supported by the factory team in the UK while the mother company from Detroit, in the United States, fielded six factory work Lincoln Mercury Comets which fared poorly even with the local knowledge of Joginder who finished 21st and last navigated by Jaswant Singh.

Motor companies workshop managers and top mechanics were the best hands-on sales executives in the 1960s long before smooth talking people invaded the advertising space.

Peter Hughes was Ford’s main man in Kenya. Nick Norwicki was Marshalls' East Africa point man based in Nakuru for the Peugeot brand while Bert Shankland was his counterpart in Tanzania.

They were accomplished mechanics and administrators and competed with each other as peers who didn't mind advertising their products to the general public in a practical way -- driving and winning the East African Safari Rally.

These and other men like Joginder Singh honed their rallying careers elsewhere but perfected their act in their workshops where they either prepared their rally cars or experts from within carried out these tasks as part of their routine duties.

In 1964 Hughes and Billy Young won the East African Safari Rally in a Ford Cortina GT and the Ford franchise locally made a bit of noise and activation never seen in Kenya before or after.

The rooftop of Ford's showroom and headquarters at the Kenyatta Avenue/Muindi Mbingu street junction was turned into a rare public display showroom of the winning car of Hughes and third-placed Mike Armstrong and Chris Bates.

The company hired Mowlem, the biggest construction company then, to hoist the cars on the roof top for open viewing.

It was a crowd-pulling spectacle which later became a tradition to display a mud-caked Safari Rally car alongside a brand new model in showrooms.

They also teased the opposition with newspaper adverts to drive their point home. There was no other better way to market cars in Kenya than using the Safari event for parts and components like tyres, lights and paint jobs.

Ford were proud of Hughes who later served as the chairman of the Safari Rally, as was the tradition then of tapping former competitors to transit into management for posterity.

Ford Kenya was supported by the factory team in the UK while the mother company from Detroit, in the United States, fielded six factory work Lincoln Mercury Comets which fared poorly even with the local knowledge of Joginder who finished 21st and last navigated by Jaswant Singh.