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In previous season Fiat had only narrowly beaten Ford for the manufacturer's title. Italians were accustomed to good results and had decided to leave nothing to a chance for 1978. Team went to a great lengths to ensure their success, increasing almost everything but number of employed drivers. Walter Rohrl spearheaded the assault, taking most starts for Fiat.
He was ably supported by Markku Alen who outscored the german but interestingly enough, also worked against Fiat in a sense. Alen had not been entered to San Remo Rally by Fiat rather than by Lancia and suprisingly he went on to win the event ahead of official Fiat cars, thus depriving Fiat of maximum score. Fiat had control over Lancia and could have introduced team orders but they were also committed to winning FIA Cup for Alen so they did not intervene.
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Yes, Fiat won the manufactuers title. Yes, Alen won the FIA Cup for Drivers. But behind these, life and rallying took place. Besides the story of Alen's San Remo win, there was similar story with Jean-Pierre Nicolas. He was official Peugeot driver but won Monte Carlo in privately entered Porsche and contested also in Ford (3rd in Portugal), Citroen and Opel besides his two wins with Peugeot 504.
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Is it a boat? No, it's Nicolas' Peugeot 504 during wet Safari. Car looks remarkably unscathed if compared to what it looked like at finish.
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Drivers scoring their
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first win
no new winners
first stage win
G. Frequelin (Monte Carlo)
L. Carlsson (Monte Carlo)
S. Mehta (Acropolis)
A. Markouizos (Acropolis)
J. Perusse (Canada - Quebec)
A. Vudafieri (San Remo)
A. Brambilla (San Remo)
C. Gardavot (San Remo)
B. Danielsson (Great Britain)
F. Tabaton (Great Britain)
J. Taylor (Great Britain)
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