RAC Rally and Rallye Monte-Carlo winner Henri Toivonen will be remembered at this year’s Race Retro event, which takes place at Stoneliegh Park, Warwickshire from 26-28 February. 30 years has now passed since the Finnish rally legend lost his life along with co-driver Sergio Cresto at the wheel of his Lancia Delta S4.
To mark the anniversary, a special display of Toivonen’s cars is to be assembled under the curatorship of Peter Clarke, the team principle of PCA Motorsports for whom the Finn drove in the 1979 Lombard Rally. The set will include the Ford Escort RS1800 in which he contested that event, plus a Talbot Sunbeam that was campaigned the following year and a Rothmans-liveried Opel Ascona from the 1982-’83 season.
Toivonen made his World Rally Championship debut in 1975 during the Rally of 1000 Lakes aged just 19, and later became the youngest driver to ever win a world rally following his success on the 1980 Lombard – a record that stood until 2008, when fellow countryman Jari-Matti Latvala won the Swedish Rally at the age of 22.
The Finn counted among his successes victory on the 1986 Rallye Monte-Carlo, which his father, 1968 European Rally Champion Pauli Toivonen, had won exactly 20 years earlier. Just a few months later Toivonen and co-driver Cresto fatally crashed while leading the Tour de Corse in Corsica.
Phil Boland and Paul White, Toivonen’s one-time co-drivers have been invited to Race Retro to help celebrate his life, as has his brother, Harri.
