Just arrived in store the Sun Star 1:18 model of Ari Vatanen's 1977 Rally of the South Pacific (NZ) Masport Escort.
In 1977 the World Rally Championship was a manufacturers only championship. For the first time ever New Zealand had a round, called The South Pacific Rally. That year was a battle between Fiat with their 131 Abath cars and Ford with the Mk.2 Escort. For New Zealand Fiat sent down a full team of 3 cars. Ford were originally going to skip the round but in response to Fiats entry decided to send down a young Finnish driver who had had some success in the UK, amongst several crashes, Ari Vatanen. He was to drive a NZ Masport Rally Team Escort with works support.
On special stage 2, Paekakariki Hill Road, Ari crashed down a bank losing 23 minutes. And so began one of the legendary comeback drives of world rallying. Despite losing a further 7 minutes with a later crash Ari and Co-driver Jim Scott almost snatched victory from the might of the Fiat team with the Fiat Team Manager Cesare Fiorio heard to comment afterwards that he was glad the rally wasn't one stage longer.
Sun Star have done a really good job of modelling the Masport Escort as it looked prior to the Paekakariki Hill Road stage. The model comes with full opening features and is a limited Edition of 1999 models.