Back to life - rebel rally car that broke all the rules

John Kershaw and Jane Buckman love their car. So they should. Over the past few years they have cleaned back layers of paint, sourced original components and repaired the accumulated scars of 20 years of rally competition.

Silver, shiny, noisy, unsophisticated and very fast, the car has led a chequered life since it was first built by Vauxhall in Britain.

It is based on a Chevette, a shopping-cart that wheezed its way around 1970s New Zealand with an asthmatic 40kW 1.3-litre engine. In road trim, it would barely raise 130 km/h downhill.

But stir in a brawny slant-four twin-cam engine with almost twice the capacity of the road car, support the extra oomph with a tough five-speed transmission and the rear suspension from its arch rival and it bristles with power.

The Vauxhall Chevette HS had no precedent except the car it challenged, the legendary Ford Escort RS. Twenty years ago, this car broke the long dominance of the Escort RS in rallying.

More significantly, the arrival of the Chevette marked the arrival of the legendary Group B years, when rally cars became fire-breathing supercars.

The Escort and Chevette were both very basic, mass-produced people's cars.

They were transformed into competitive rally cars with the addition of an engine they were never designed to accept, making up to four times the original power.

This car caused a sensation in the 1979 Rally of New Zealand. At Western Springs stadium in Auckland, on the very first competitive stage, Finn Pentti Airikkala drove it Nascar-style around the steep banking to trounce his countryman Hannu Mikkola in an Escort.

He won the next stage as well, but was destined not to finish the event. For Kiwi rally fans, though, that first stage summed up the march of technology. All of a sudden, the once-dominant Escorts could be beaten, and by a fairly unsophisticated rival from - of all people - General Motors.

Airikkala's little piece of showmanship wasn't witnessed by Kershaw and partner Buckman, because they were competing on the event.

The car was then used by the newly formed General Motors Dealer Team, driven by Steve Millen and later Paul Adams in national and international events.

After that, its life story gets a little murky. It went back to England and was upgraded to the later HSR specification with a new body kit and some significant mechanical changes to give more power and torque and better handling.

These changes helped the factory Chevette stay competitive even into the first years of the four-wheel-drive era.

But this car was sold to make way for later evolutions. A decade or more of abuse followed at the hands of club drivers, and when the Chevette was found by Dunlop Targa New Zealand organiser Mike John, it was no longer the car it had been.

Unlike today, where second-hand factory rally cars can command prices of $1 million or more, the Chevettes and Escorts of the time were easily affordable by club rally drivers, and were sold by the teams to make way for new cars.

"We had to take it back to metal, get it on a chassis machine and basically build it from scratch," says Kershaw.

It was a daunting task. Almost every component was worn out. Kershaw says he could have given up many times.

Coated in sanding dust while preparing the interior, skinning his knuckles removing seized bolts in the engine bay, re-welding the rollcage or cutting through paint to find rust ... the job was heartbreaking.

Only an almost unreasoning passion for the finished article - and unwavering support from Buckman - carried him through.

The finished car is a tribute to his perseverance. Every bolt and bracket has been brought back to new condition. True to its motorsport heritage, the car has been finished in the silver DTV Castrol factory HSR team livery.

It has just completed this year's New Zealand Targa tarmac rally, finishing second in its category, and there are plans to take it to Australia's faster, tougher Targa Tasmania next year.

Kershaw says the car has even bolstered his faith in his own driving ability.

"There is a tremendous satisfaction to restoring a car like this and then driving it in competition. To also have the car run so competitively with a minimum of sorting is very gratifying.

"I have also decided rear-wheel-drive is my favourite competition format - maybe that makes me a classic or traditional driver as much as the Chevette is a classic of its time."