00:00This humble Dodge was one of the star attractions of Dakar 1986 and 40 years on its owners can
00:12still remember a very lively start in Vincennes. There were people everywhere jumping on the car
00:21asking us for autographs. We knew nothing about motorsport, we'd never done a race before, we
00:27were true novices. In Vincennes, the police had to guide us through the crowd to the Parc
00:35Fermet because people were clambering all over the car. Originally an ambulance belonging to
00:42the American army, this Dodge arrived in France during World War II and was eventually given
00:47to the fire service. It may have survived the war, but surviving the Dakar was another
00:53story. After Fontainebleau, we set off for Montargis and we started to have some problems. We
00:59lost part of the exhaust pipe after Toulouse. Then we had a nasty surprise in Algiers when
01:09we discovered that the clutch had been burned. We were in the prototype class with Porsche,
01:15so they had to watch out. Obviously it didn't turn out like that. While Porsche would go
01:21on to claim the 1-2 that year, the Dodge lost its bonnet before the desert and never made
01:26it to Dakar, despite the encouragement of rally director Thierry Sabine. I went to see him
01:35and said it was impossible for us to go any further and he made it clear that it would be nice to
01:39see the car go all the way if we ignored certain rules, but it was too late.
