John Fitzpatrick explains how a publicity stunt landed him in trouble with the law

Press stunts are part of the job, but few are more bizarre than the time I had to water-ski down the Thames with an Aussie known to throw dynamite

The Austin 1800 was always a very unlikely competition car and rallying must have been far from Alex Issigonis’ mind when he designed it. Stuart Turner was BMC Competitions Manager at the time and decided that rallying, if successful, would be a good way to boost its image. The first foray into competition was the 1965 Monte Carlo Rally and I was given the dubious honor of driving one of the two cars entered. It was not a success, ending at the bottom of a ravine in the mountains in Southern France. An adventure that I wrote about in an earlier column.

The next venture for the 1800 was the London-sydney Marathon in 1968. BMC prepared five cars to be driven by all its top rally drivers and one of the teams included Jack Murray. He was a well-known Australian driver and adventurer; I had the good fortune to get to know him during my first visit to Australia in 1964 to drive in the

Six Hours of Sandown. BMC had shipped out three works Mini Coopers – one to be driven by Paddy Hopkirk and I, one by Timo Makkinen and Rauno Altonen and one by the top Australian Mini drivers at the time.

Jack was an accomplished driver and had competed successfully in the round Australia Ampol trial on a number of occasions. His nickname was ‘Gelignite Jack’, a name he acquired after tossing sticks of dynamite out of the car to make things difficult for his following competitors. When he heard about my interest in water-skiing he took the Mini drivers and myself to his weekend retreat on the Hawkesbury river. He taught me to mono-ski there; it wasn’t until some time later that we were told there had been several sightings of sharks in the area.

Prior to the start of the rally in London, BMC had decided to use Jack in a publicity stunt. Evan Green, well known PR man for BMC in Australia, was sharing one of the 1800s with Jack and thought it would be a good idea to take him water-skiing on the Thames. Evan knew of my interest in it and contacted me to set up a photo opportunity with Jack. I met them by the Thames in Kingston and we ventured down river in my boat, past the Houses of Parliament, before lowering Jack into the water. A second boat full of press photographers accompanied us. We skied Jack back up the river, past the Houses of Parliament at high speed, giving great photo opportunities to the following press gang. Then we were apprehended by the river police.

Once they discovered what it was all about they gave us a friendly telling off and sent us on our way. As soon as the police launch was out of sight, we dropped Jack back into the water and skied him all the way back to Kingston, much to the amusement of people on the river banks. There were a lot of fishermen out that day and by the time we got Jack out of the water he was covered in fishing lines and hooks.

The 1800s all did very well in the Rally, with all the cars finishing and Paddy Hopkirk in second place.

The stunt was a success, as tenuous as the link to the rally may have been

John Fitzpatrick began his racing career in the British Saloon Car Championship, winning it in 1966. He was European GT Champion in 1972 and 1974, and became a team owner in 1981.