Two cool (to me) Safari Rally Pics...

[Jeff Alton]

The other day I head down to the bookstore with my son to get some more curious george books and I swing into the magazine racks with him. I spot the latest 911 and Porsche World on the rack and pick it up. There is an article in there about the East African Safari Rally which interests me. When I was 7 and 8 my family lived in Kenya and my dad helped in the Safari Porsche garage and his best buddy drove one of the Porsche team support vehicles for the events.

So, I am thumbing through the mag and see this picture in it........







Then my son (5.5 years old) says "hey daddy, we have that same picture at home, except you are in it!!". So off home we go to dig through the pics we got from my parents a couple of years ago, and sure enough, this is what we find!








There are some differences in the level of completion of thecar prep (numbers etc) but the cars were not in the garage for long, so these two pics were taken pretty close together in 1978 in Nairobi Kenya.

Anyways, thought someone might get a kick out of it besides me!

Cheers

[slodave]

Really cool Jeff!

[sand_man]

AWESOME!!!! I want my wheels autographed by you!

[KFC911]

Originally Posted by Jeff Alton

The other day I head down to the bookstore with my son to get some more curious george books...

Cool pics and story! I didn't realize those books were still around (no kids obviously)...my dad's nickname for me has been "George" for forty-some odd years because of that stupid monkey

[johndglynn]

That is really rally cool mate! Here's a pic from this year's Classic Safari:

[CurtEgerer]

Jeff, that's fantastic! Do you have any other photos or recollections from the rally?

[Dueller]

It was probably taken the very same day. If you look at the left side of the magazine pic you can see what appears to be the same guy on the left of your pic in the pink shirt. WOW!

[Jeff Alton]

I saw that too! In the pic with me you can on the second car the driver names on the fender and the number covered with paper being applied to the door, on the mag photo the names are not on that car yet.

We have more slides from both the 77 and 78 rallies, all action shots, but none are too great. I do remember being in the garage and poking around. We followed the rally around a fair bit while it was on and near us.

The the thing I remember most though was all the news paper coverage it got and lots of good pics in the papers of cars stuck in water holes and broken down etc. Of course there was also pics of the odd native fan who got too close and got hit..... I still think somewhere my parents may have scrapbooks with the news aritcles, at least I hope!

The rally was one of the highlights of my 2 years of childhood there for sure. We owned one of only 8 porsches that were in the country at the time so we were treated pretty well when the show came to town....

Cheers

[boba]

Jeff, that is just too cool. I have that issue, I will have to pull it out and check it out.

Please post the rest of your photos.

Bob