Volvo 142 S 'Safari Rally' by Arena Modelli

1971 Volvo 142 S East African Safari Rally

The Italian company Arena Modelli is offering their Volvo 142 S model in a new Rally livery. The new model reflects the Volvo 142 S which has been used in the 19th East African Safari Rally back in 1971. The car was driven by Bengt Söderström (SE) and Palm Torsten (SE). The car wore number 29 and the main sponsor was Hella. The Volvo 142 S ended at the 19th place in this car breaker rally that year (8.4. – 12.4.1971). The East African Safari Rally is known today under the name Safari Rally and it still takes place today.

Some of you might remember that a Volvo once won the East African Safari Rally. Singh Joginder with copilot Singh Jaswant won the 13th edition with a Volvo PV544 Sport back in 1965 (15. 4. – 19. 4. 1965).

This is a very very detailed 1:43 scale resin kit with a lot of photo etched detail parts and excellent decals. Arena Modelli sells these kits for € 65 under item number ARE 741. But Arena Modelli offers you also the possibility to order built-up ones for 160-180 €. Every rtr (ready-to-run) model is made to order.

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Quote from Wikipedia:

The Safari Rally is rally race held in East Africa. It was first held from 27 May to 1 June 1953 as the East African Coronation Safari in Kenya, Uganda and Tanganyika,as a celebration of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. In 1960 it was renamed the East African Safari Rally and kept that name until 1974, when it became the Safari Rally.

The Safari Rally adopted the special stage format in 1996. From that edition until 2002, it featured over 1000 km of timed stages, with stages well over 60 km long, unlike most rallies which had under 500 km of total timed distance. This meant that the winner's total time was above 12 hours in 1996 and decreased to two seconds shy of 8 hours in 2002.

The event was part of the World Rally Championship calendar for many years until being excluded after 2002 due to the lack of finance and organisation in 2003. The Kenyan government is trying to get the rally's WRC status restored. Since 2003 the event has been part of the African Rally Championship organised by the FIA. It is currently known as the KCB Safari Rally after its sponsor, Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB).

Local driver Shekhar Mehta was the most successful in the event with five outright victories (1973, 1979–1982).

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Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safari_Rally


Previous Volvo 142 rally car models released by Arena Modelli:

Further reading:

• www.ewrc-results.com
• www.eastafricansafarirally.com
• www.sikh-heritage.co.uk/sports/EAS&Joginder/easafari&joginder.htm