Images and video are courtesy of Volvo Cars
The postwar PVs were the cars that introduced Volvo to the wider world; the PV444 and PV544 of the 1950s and 1960s established this Swedish automaker’s enviable reputation for durability and surprising performance. Perhaps the PV544′s most prominent international motorsports victory was its domination of the 1965 East African Safari Rally, at the hands of the Singh brothers, Joginder and Jaswant.
Considered by many to be the world’s toughest rally, the East African Safari Rally proved too much for Volvo’s first four-car attempt, in 1964. Those cars, built by Gunnar Andersson‘s competition department team, were fitted with 130-hp (up from the stock 90-hp) B18 engines, reinforced front suspensions with Bilstein twin-tube shock absorbers and front disc brakes, two gas tanks and skid plates under the engine, gearbox and fuel tanks. Of the 94 cars that began the race, only 21 finished, and just one of the four PVs crossed the finish line, although not in time to be counted.
Volvo Cars Heritage picks up the tale:
Tom Trana‘s car was left in Kenya with the importer Amazon Motors. Joginder Singh, the seasoned driver from Kenya who had competed several times in the Safari Rally, became interested in Volvo. He borrowed a PV544 from Amazon Motors in 1964 to take part in smaller rallies in Africa. Using his knowledge of engineering, Singh modified and improved the PV after each rally to make it even more suitable for the African conditions.
Five months before the thirteenth Safari Rally in April 1965, Joginder Singh entered into a hire purchase agreement with Amazon Motors to buy the PV544 that Tom Trana had driven the previous year. The crashed car that had already completed two seasons was repaired, and then carefully tested by Joginder and his co-driver brother, Jaswant.
Although the Singh brothers had enjoyed success in the Safari Rally on previous occasions when driving other makes of car, no one thought the Sikh brothers in their turbans had much of a chance this time. It had been a flop for Volvo the year before, and there was stiff competition from several major car stables.
Joginder and Jaswant drew number one for the starting position. In the past, this had been considered an unlucky number in the Safari Rally. It was, without a doubt, a lucky number this year, however. The first stage of the rally was dry and, as the leading car, Singh had good visibility with no one churning up the dust in front of him. The second stage was wet and muddy and the roads quickly became slippery and rutted. But the Volvo was still in the lead and the brothers had a special technique for getting out of the mud. There were two handles fitted to the rear of the car. As Joginder sat at the steering wheel endeavouring to get the narrow rear tyres to grip, Jaswant would stand on the rear bumper rocking the car to put more pressure on the drive wheels. It was a human traction control system!
The crowd went wild when the Singh brothers crossed the finish line in Nairobi on the fifth day of the Safari Rally. They also won by the largest margin ever in the rally’s history. Second place was taken by Ian Jaffray who drove up to the finish line one hour and 40 minutes later. Joginder was popularly known as “The Flying Sikh” since then.
After this victory, Amazon Motors gave the winning 544 to Joginder Singh. This car, now restored and wearing period regalia, still belongs to the Singh family, and is currently on display at the Volvo Museum in Gothenburg, Sweden.
Joginder drove Volvos in subsequent rallies, and won the Safari Rally again in 1974 and in 1976, both times driving a Mitsubishi Lancer 1600 GSR; he died in 2013 at age 81. The East African Safari Rally is now run as a vintage event.
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