ANDREW COWAN 1936-2019

Farmer, rally driver and World Rally Championship-winning team owner Andrew Cowan has died aged 82.

Born in 1936, he progressed from driving tractors as a child on his family farm to a VW Beetle on the Scottish Borders roads with lifelong friend Jim Clark. He graduated to his mother’s Sunbeam Rapier, entering the RAC in 1960 and finishing 43rd. Within three years he was enjoying assistance from Rootes, having won the Scottish Rally in 1962 and ‘63, and became a fully fledged works man for the 1964 Rallye Monte-carlo. That same year he won the Touring Car category of the Tour de France in an Alan Mann Mustang, too, partnering friend Peter Proctor.

He claimed victory on the London to Sydney in a Hillman Hunter in 1968, and won the following running with Mercedes-benz – albeit nine years later.

He linked up with Mitsubishi in the 1970s, winning the Southern Cross Rally five years in a row, first in a Galant in 1972 before four Lancer wins.

That led to Cowan forming Ralliart in 1984 and entering the Paris-dakar with a Pajero, claiming second in 1985. He led Mitsubishi to many WRC wins, and the signing of Tommi Mäkinen was the catalyst for World Rally Championship dominance in the late ’90s: Mäkinen and Ralliart claimed four drivers’ titles and one manufacturers’ trophy between 1995 and 2001.

Hugely popular, Cowan remained a prominent and constant figure in grassroots and international rallying, especially in his native Scotland.