09 – Day 3 Friday – Michael Coates P76 - Sunraysia Safari 2025

[Music] The car was designed by Australians and one of the features of the of the vehicle is that uh suitable for those people on the land. You can put a 44gallon drum in the boot and you could. Incredible. >> Can you do that still? >> No. I've got a fuel tank gets in the way. >> Michael, you're a bit of a tiger for punishment with this event, aren't you? Well, I've been doing it, I think, for everyone, I think, so far. >> What is it about it? >> Uh, where else can you do 1197 competitive kilometers in 4 days? Uh, on roads that are just outback fabulous station tracks, engineered roads. It's magic. It's a fantastic event. >> We've lost a stage today, but you've still been out there doing 177 km in one st. Yeah, it's awesome. We've shortened the wheelbase slowly with a few serious impacts, but yeah. No, it's all just so doable and really good tracks. >> Do you get frustrated with days like day one when you know like it's not really suited to yours when you get weather conditions like that? >> No, no, it wasn't at all. But, uh, when we uh when we could get further down the track than the four-wheel drive sweep car, uh, I thought we were doing pretty good to get where we got. Is that the satisfaction? It's about doing that rather than trying to win something. >> Oh, I'm not in it to win it. There's nothing I can win out here. Um, but I should show you the the images that uh we had with the mud that would covering the car when the sweep car um eventually got through and four spinning wheels hurling mud over the car. It was just amazing. We couldn't see a thing. And we had two inches of mud on the front of the radiator. So, we weren't going anywhere until we could get a gurnie and hose that off. So, but yeah, great fun. >> Why this car for you? Um in 1995 I wanted to give up the uh sprint rally series because uh there was so much waiting around and really short stages and I really wanted to do the round Australia event and uh I read the book uh Evan Green's fabulous book a boo full of right arms where he was uh the very first car across the Sahara in a twice across the Sahara London to Munich event world up and he knocked off the Mercedes factory team with Sterling Moss and the Peugeot factory team and the Lancia factory team and the Ford factory team in a P76 privateeer. Anyway, uh I'd given up and I was pushing the trolley around Coohl's and there was this huge sign brute men are back and I realized it was 21 years after that event and I figured if they were spending that much money in every coals and war around Australia they probably had 30 grand left over. So I wrote a sponsorship application to Fabay Lever Kitchen and 10 minutes after it hit his desk, he wanted my bank account number and I just regret I didn't ask him for 50 grand and uh had to go and buy a P76. Never driven one but as soon as I did, I realized that they were just a beautifully designed car. >> What do you say to those uh with with a with a a standard rally car that don't seem to be jumping to come down here and take part in this? Uh, well, they should. They really should. Um, it's obviously an event that's designed for the four-wheel drive category, but it's so doable. It's so doable. Any competent um, rally car, PRC rally car, uh, could do it. [Music]