A 20-mile convoy of 1300 Subarus will tomorrow celebrate the life of former world rally champ Colin McRae, who died in a helicopter crash last September, and bid to break two official Guinness World Records at Prodrive’s test track in Warwickshire.
Today a smaller convoy set off from McRae’s home town of Lanark to Banbury, the base of the Prodrive team which prepared the Scot’s 1995 championship-winning car.
Led by dad Jimmy, in one of Colin’s original cars, it travelled south along the M74 and M6. By the time it reached Birmingham and headed down the M40, it had grown to more than 700 cars, stretched over 10 miles and took 10 minutes to pass any one point.
Today 1300 cars will gather at Prodrive in Banbury before being led back up the M40 by McRae’s 1996 Impreza 555 rally car in a convoy 20 miles long. On arrival at the Warwickshire test track the cars will write out ‘COLIN MCRAE’ in a sign nearly half a mile long and visible to passengers landing at Birmingham Airport and then create a parade of 1300 Subarus.
“When the idea of the convoy to commemorate the life of Colin was born, we never dreamt 1300 Subarus would be taking part,” Grant Hendry, one of the organisers of the McRae Gathering, explained.
“We even have Subarus joining us from all over Europe, from Poland and the Ukraine to France and Spain, while some fans are flying in especially from Australia and Argentina to be part of this memorable occasion.”
JM