This month we pay our respects to rally legend, Colin McRae.

This issue we salute one of the greatest Ford heroes of all time, the rally legend Colin McRae...

The life of Colin Steele McRae MBE has all the hallmarks of a Hollywood movie – a child prodigy in a motorsport family, a career perennially walking the knife-edge between success and catastrophe, and a life snuffed out too young.

Son of five-time British Rally Champion Jimmy McRae, a career in rallying always seemed inevitable for Colin and his brother Alister, although interestingly Colin began his racing endeavours riding trial bikes before discovering autotesting at the age of sixteen and swapping his bike for a Mini Cooper. A year or so later, he twisted a club member’s arm to use his Hillman Avenger in a stage rally and, finishing fourteenth, Colin’s future path was decided. In 1986 he entered the Scottish Rally Championship in a Talbot Sunbeam, his hell-for-leather driving style drawing comparisons with Ari Vatanen, and 1988 was the year of his first major triumph: McRae won the Scottish Rally Championship in a humble Vauxhall Nova, something nobody expected possible.

Keen to satiate his lust for thrust, Colin upgrade to a Sierra XR4x4, and by 1990 he was driving a Sapphire RS Cosworth in the RAC Rally, winning despite numerous accidents. His successes caught the eye of Prodrive, who signed him in ’91, and he took the British Rally Champion title two years running before being signed to the Subaru works team, where he campaigned the WRC from 1993-98.

1999 was the year he signed for Ford, driving the M-Sport-prepared Focus. He celebrated the signing (and a salary that made him the highest-paid rally driver ever) with two consecutive wins, although with a number of crashes over the season McRae ended up finishing sixth. His career with Ford was turbulent, and certainly never dull, pinballing between incredible victories and massive accidents, often seeming to have a make-the-corner-or-die-trying attitude.

Leaving Ford in 2002, McRae said “It’s been a very successful four years, we’ve achieved a lot of good results and I’m quite happy that myself and Ford have had a very successful partnership.” He went on to join the Citroën rally team in 2003, leaving in ’04 to pursue other interests including the Dakar Rally, Ascar and Le Mans. He was planning a return to the WRC for the 2008 season, but in September 2007 McRae’s helicopter crashed near to the Lanark family home, killing him and his young son Johnny. A prodigious talent gone too soon.