Timo Mäkinen 1938-2017
‘Flying Finn’ remembered by Richard Heseltine
MÄKINEN WAS THE wild man of rallying, widely regarded as being the hardest charger of his generation, his wins on bluechip events such as the Monte Carlo having entered into legend.
Former BMC and Ford competition chief Stuart Turner rates him as the best driver he ever employed. ‘His 1965 Monte Carlo win was one of the all-time greatest drives,’ he says. ‘He didn’t just come first, he demoralised the competition. He annihilated them in appalling conditions. I first ran Timo on the Monte two years prior to that. I put him in a Big Healey – perhaps the most unsuitable car ever for snow and ice – alongside Christabel Carlisle. They won their class. Timo also took a hat-trick of wins on the RAC in 1973-75 as a works Ford man. You don’t get those on eBay.’
The Helsinki man’s early exploits included ice racing a Jaguar D-type plus class and overall wins in local rallies before winning the 1964 Tulip Rally and claiming his first Monte a year later. Victory on the ’65 RAC Rally aboard an Austin-Healey 3000 should have bookended a brilliant season, only for him to lose out in the snow to Minimounted Rauno Aaltonen on the final night, after leading by five minutes! Another win that slipped through his fingers was the 1966 Monte Carlo Rally. He and co-driver Paul Easter won on the road, but the 1-2-3 Minis and fourth-placed Lotus Cortina were then excluded due to a spurious lighting infringement that handed the win to Citroën driver Pauli Toivonen.
For Ford, he was routinely the fastest Escort driver. Turner recalls: ‘A great many rallies were infested with Escorts and he had to beat some serious competition in virtually identical cars. It isn’t just me who rated him. Years ago, there was a Q&A session at some “do” where Paddy Hopkirk and Tony Fall were asked to name the best driver they’d ever competed against. Now, most drivers will start mumbling when asked something like that, not wanting to praise a rival, but both named Timo without hesitation. By the same token, many mechanics from the time say much the same thing: he wasn’t necessarily a car-breaker, but they felt it was their responsibility to build a car that was tough enough to withstand anything Timo could throw at it. If the car held together, he would usually win.’
Nevertheless, Mäkinen lost his seat with Ford to Björn Waldegård in 1977 before winding down his career by participating in longdistance events with Peugeot and tackling occasional rallies with Toyota and BMW France. He retired in 1981 yet made a shortlived return on the 1994 Monte in a Rover Mini. The car expired on the second stage, but there had been no lacking in commitment prior to that. And you wouldn’t have expected anything less of him.