Russell Brookes
Two-time British rally champion who became famous for his gaudy ‘Andrews Heat for Hire’ car livery
RUSSELL BROOKES, who has died following a bicycle accident aged 74, was a tough, squat, hugely popular rally driver who twice won the British Championship; in a career stretching from the 1970s until the 1990s he had 38 stage wins in various races, and became famous for his cars’ bright yellow “Andrews Heat for Hire” livery.
He was born at Redditch in Worcestershire on August 16 1945; his father had a building firm. Russell caught the rallying bug in 1961, shortly after his 16th birthday, on a family holiday to Yugoslavia, where he saw a stage of the Liège-sofia-liège Rally.
He was still 16 when he made his competitive debut driving a Renault Dauphine in a production car trial, in which participants tackle a hill climb, with points given for hitting marker poles or stopping, the winner being the driver with fewest points. His first race proper was a snowy Mermaid Rally – in which he overturned his father’s Austin A105 Westminster.
Without family money he was held back by the rule that forbade sponsorship of non-team cars (and in the 1970s he had to contend with the invasion of Finnish and Swedish drivers taken on by most teams). But with his friend and racing partner Richard Platt he hit on a scheme to race on the cheap, buying a car for next to nothing at auction, driving it in a rally and then selling it the next week.
Brookes supported himself working as a trainee quantity surveyor in the Midlands. But as soon as he was qualified he was on his way: “They insisted that I work Saturdays, which interfered with my rallying,” he told Motorsport magazine. “I joined a smaller company but they soon found out what I was about and sacked me.”
He found a job as a technical correspondent with British Leyland. “I was the man who wrote to all the people with broken gearboxes and said, ‘Dear Sir, You have been singularly unfortunate …’ Whereupon they would write back and say, ‘I have been singularly unfortunate four times already.’”
His rallying career started slowly, and though he had some decent results, by the early 1970s he was ready to give it all up. But when Ford instituted their Mexico Championship with the aim of uncovering new talent, the Brooklyn Garages team approached him to drive for them.
He finished an encouraging sixth in his first season, and the following year won the Welsh Championship. But he still needed sponsorship, and sent begging letters to “everyone I could think of ”. The portable heater and air conditioner company Andrews Heat For Hire had planned to sponsor a hot-air balloon until the pilot was killed in an accident, and so they took on Brookes instead.
Success was immediate, Brookes winning the Castrol/mn title and the Group One title in the National Championship in an Escort RS2000. In 1976 he was given a works Ford Escort for the British Championship, finishing second to Ari Vatanen, who he did beat in the Scottish Rally.
The following year he was taken on full-time by Ford – while retaining his Heat For Hire deal – and gained his revenge over Vatanen, a win on the Circuit of Ireland and a clutch of top-three podium places (including one in the prestigious RAC Rally), giving him victory in the British Championship.
He was runner-up in 1978 to another flying Finn, Hannu Mikkola, as well as winning the Tulip Rally in Holland and the Motogard Rally in New Zealand – the last British victory in a top-level overseas race until Colin Mcrae’s in the same rally 15 years later.
In 1979, with Ford winding down their racing operation for a time, Brookes drove a Talbot Sunbeam for two seasons, and then for Vauxhall/opel, where Jimmy Mcrae (father of Colin, who went on to become the youngest world champion) was his team-mate, but also his rival for the British Championship. Over a memorably intense two seasons honours were shared, Mcrae winning in 1984, Brookes the following year in an Opel Manta 400.
There were further drives, for Vauxhall, Lancia, and back at Ford, whose Sierra RS Cosworth 4x4 he drove to victory in the 1990 Manx Trophy. But with the printing company he had founded in 1982 needing attention, and a diagnosis of diabetes, Brookes officially retired in 1991, though he competed in one-off and historic events, and in 1997 won the historic-car RAC Rally. He attended events such as Race Retro, giving demonstrations of his electric car.
“I feel that I was lucky, living at a time when you could go rallying for very little money,” he said. “Now the technical and safety regulations mean that you need a lottery win just to start out.”
Russell Brookes is survived by his wife, Julia, and their family.
Russell Brookes, born August 16 1945, died October 30 2019