00:001979 a very old car on the first Paris Dakar we were driving a Renault KZ from 1926 and it
00:18was still in its original states the only thing we added was an air filter the bodywork was made
00:24out of wood and covered with sheet metal the chassis was fairly basic and we had a two-litre engine with
00:31a maximum power output of just 33 horsepower however it had an incredible amount of torque
00:37like a tractor December the 26th 1978 we arrived on the Plata Trocadero the car was finally ready
00:53our race number was 103 but they'd run out of zeros so we cut up a number eight instead that's why when
01:00you look at the footage you see 103 with a smaller zero in the middle it's an adventure and a gamble
01:09to reach Dakar whether we do it within the time limits or not there are things that shouldn't even
01:18be attempted they're crazy when you know Africa a bit you could argue that it's pure madness the old
01:26Renault don't have a make it even the road sections will be a battle in a car that old
01:30leaving Trocadero with everybody cheering us on it was absolutely extraordinary
01:39the grandios the journey down to the start went fine but then from about Rowan onwards the gearbox
01:50started showing signs of weakness back then I worked for Renault sports and the guys there had
01:58given me some oil they said you'll see this will be perfect for your gearbox it was actually Formula One
02:04oil however a gearbox from 1926 wasn't quite as impermeable as an F1 gearbox from the 1970s so we
02:13lost all of the oil and then we had to stop at every service station on the way and fill up the oil
02:18but we still made it down to Marseille on the boat we asked for a space where we could fix the gearbox
02:37and they put us down in the holes so we redid the gearbox well meanwhile the boat was going through
02:49a storm and everybody up on the deck was seasick but we didn't get ill because we were so focused
02:55on fixing our gearbox down in the holes and we were already feeling the pressure
03:07so you
03:10you
