1952 Record Run – Hillman Minx

Extract from the Hillman Brochure of 1952:

By George Hinchliffe:

While relaxing on board ship when returning from Cape Town, Mr James Pulman and I recounted and relived the many incidents and recollections of the record-breaking run: across France, over the Mediterranean to Algiers, south across the Sahara Desert for Nigeria, French Equatorial Africa, the Belgian Congo, Uganda, Kenya and Tanganyika Territory and through Northern and Southern Rhodesia for the Union of South Africa and so to our destination , Cape Town.

How quickly the route can be summarised in that way! But it is a way back to that early start from London, Pall Mall on December 31st, last then headed for Lympne Airport, to take the Silver City freighter for Le Touquet.

My promise to be at the Mediterranean French Port by 8am the following morning, I was determined to keep. This meant that we covered the 700 odd miles in under 21 hours, and the journey from London in under 24 hours. Welcome indeed was the brief respite afloat after that not insignificant drive.

Off-loaded at Algiers our route was for Laghuat, El Golea, In Salah, Tamanrasset, Guezzam, Agadez and Zinder, crossing the Sahara Desert from North to South for Kano, Fort Lamy, Archambault and Crampbel, for Bangassu in French Equatorial Africa and thence to Stanleyville in the Belgian Congo.

Pressing east for Kampala in Uganda, passing Mount Kenya and on to Nairobi, we turned south then in the wake of Mount Kilimanjaro (19, 316 feet and the highest mountain in Africa), on to Arusha, Eringa, Mbaya, Mpike and to Broken Hill for Salisbury, Fort Victoria, Beitbridge, Pretoria, Johannesburg, Kroonstad, Kimberley, Paarl and so to Cape Town.

During the day we made it a practise to each take two-hour spells of driving, varying this to one hour each during the hours of darkness. Bearing this in mind and the fact that on two occasions only in 21 days did we have a complete night’s rest, the preliminary work in ensuring real physical fitness and the long-distance preparatory drives for special endurance training – with 12,000 miles (including 4,000 miles “running in” all over Europe) before the start – were well rewarded.

At odd times, of course, we both experienced the urge to sleep. It was inevitable; then we would stop, take a brisk walk or have a dressing of Eau de Cologne on face and neck, to put us right for another hundred odd miles.

It was easy enough, too, to say that in the first seven days we covered the journey from London to the southernmost tip of the Sahara, at Kano and actually made the fastest desert crossing, with a time of under five days, in spite of the intense heat and physical discomfort.

Yet I recall this particular section only too well as I glance down at my broken finger-nails and my still sore finger-tips, acquired in the never-ending battles with the heart-breaking sand into which we frequently sank to axle level.

With the usual outside aids, sand mats, picks and spades, there was always that final grovelling with our bare hands to clear inaccessible parts and hot dry Sahara sand can be like blistering emery paper: we have the scars as proof.

Nor was it all that easy to maintain the straight-ahead course. Without landmarks, certainly without sign-posts, so terribly alone and thirsty under the blazing sun, doubly alert and watchful at night, weary of the day’s heat, small wonder that occasionally we went round in circles. I confess that on more than one occasion I had grievous doubts as to the sense of pushing on. Indeed, I remember vowing to friend Bulman that were all the sand of this ghastly desert as dust of gold I would not attempt a second crossing.

I knew that all the time we must push on. We had to keep faith with our consciences, with our friends, we were out to do our best.

To tell all the many stories of our fears – and we had them! – our hopes and at times, necessarily modified plans, would occupy the space of volumes; the occasion particularly when out in that vast sea of loneliness in a moment of almost complete and utter despair as to the correct route, as a last resort I clambered on to the top of the car and peered anxiously through my binoculars. We were glad to see, as mere spots on the distant horizon, a camel convoy, so weary were we of endeavouring again and again to retrace our tyre tracks in order to discover the point at which we erred.

However, we finally reached Kano at 10.55 pm and gladly pushed on for Fort Lamy, where there was more delay at the ferry crossing for French Equatorial Africa, one of the many river crossings mostly by primitive transportation, before we were to reach Stanleyville.

The river crossings varied from ferries constructed of hollowed-out tree trunks, lashed together with ropes and planks, paddled across by natives or by natives pulling wires stretched from the one bank to the other, to the more modern method of a small auxiliary motor unit attached to the craft, yet always that eerie, if not unpleasant, rhythmical motion inspired either by beats on the “tom-tom” or the swaying of a loud-voiced native, giving impressive illustration to leisurely team work, with time no object in all things. My gifts of odd remnants of silks, or other textiles, samples of which I had brought with me from Bradford, as possible aids in emergency, proved indescribably effective.

Further south we drove along the Equator for two days on our way to Jinga to come to still more hazards, flooded countryside with the water some two feet in places, literally oceans of mud, frequently delaying us for hours on end and always when time was our main concern.

Many times between Nairobi and Johannesburg as a contrast to sand, we were delayed by floods. However, if we were to break the record, it was necessary to keep going and on several occasions we had to resort to the native trick of laying branches beneath the water to get traction, indeed, one section of over 80 yards had to be prepared in this way.

Despite three punctures (the spare tyre being repaired inside the car while on the move) we covered the last 700 miles in eighteen hours, for ten of which the speed did not vary from between 55 mph and 60 mph.

We clocked in at Cape Town at 4 am (GMT 2 am) on January 22nd, 21 days 19 hours and 45 minutes after leaving Pall Mall, London. We had broken the record by 2 days 5 hours and 5 minutes.

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