CHRIS HARRIS

Every now and then you get to meet your heroes. Sometimes, you even get to meet your hero’s hero

I am lucky enough to have the best job in the world. I know this, I’m eternally grateful for it. But sometimes, just sometimes, even the best job in the world delivers a moment so glorious it makes the rest seem pretty mundane. That moment came with a car bearing the registration L555 BAT.

To those who know, I won’t need to list the make and model of the car that took Colin McRae to his first World Rally Championship – to those who don’t know (and eternal shame on you for being a Luddite) it was a Subaru Impreza.

There are a few cars wearing the now famous L555 BAT plate – because Colin had a habit of working through shells the way children do Lego sets – but the one we filmed, and I drove, is the one. The car that crossed the line to win the Network Q RAC Rally in 1995, to win the title and execute the most violent set of donuts ever seen on national television. We had to lobby hard to be allowed to drive the car, which is still owned by Colin’s widow Alison, but she very kindly said yes, and for the filming days sent Colin’s father Jimmy along to supervise. This was a treat.

Jimmy McRae was also a rally driver. His career didn’t quite scale the same heights as his son’s, but in the UK he was rallying royalty – a five-time national champion. I interviewed Colin several times, and once asked who his hero drivers were. He simply answered: “My dad.” I acknowledged that, made a note and pushed a little harder asking if Waldegård or Blomqvist had inspired him: “No, just my dad.”

You’ll be watching the film we made around L555 BAT about now. It goes without saying that for someone who was obsessed with rallying in the Nineties, who hero-worshipped Colin and who is very partial to an early Impreza, this is the most special car I’ve ever driven. Not the most expensive, or glamorous, but the most significant. It represents everything I love about the sport and reminds us of a time when differentials were mechanical, engines started without the presence of a laptop and people bought road cars based on whether they won rallies.

We had some time between shots to chat, and being a terrible bobble-hatter, I basically sat and jabbered questions at Jimmy: “Talk me through the Manta 400!” Him: “I liked the car with the synchromesh gearbox”, and so it went on with him answering my odd queries, when I dropped one that made him think.

“Jimmy”, I said, suspecting he was looking for an escape route away from the journalist. “You were around with all the greats. You knew and competed against all the legends: Toivonen, Vatanen, Sainz, Mikkola, Alén – the lunatics who strapped themselves into Group B cars and drove in a manner we still can’t understand – but was there one of them who was a step above the others, who, on his, or her day, was just uncatchable?”

He took his time, thumbed the meanly buttered sandwich we’d given him, looked out of the window, then at the ground, then raised his head with the suggestion of a grin (Jimmy has one of the best grins) and said: “There was one – it was Walter Röhrl. I think he was the fastest of them all.”

So – I drove L555 BAT. I had Jimmy McRae confirm what I always hoped and suspected – that Walter was the boss. And I finally understood why, on the subject of his heroes, Colin McRae felt no need to move the subject beyond his quite wonderful father.

“L555 BAT IS THE MOST SPECIAL CAR I’VE DRIVEN... THE MOST SIGNIFICANT”