Citroen achieved notable rally success with the DS, but this is not just any rally car. This is the car that won the 1974 London-Sahara-Munich World Cup Rally. 70 cars entered the race, and only 19 finished. Of those 19 cars, only 5 had managed to travel the full distance. The course covered approximately 18,000 miles (29,000km) and began in London, then traversing the most gruelling terrain ever traversed by an international rally in Africa. Most entrants failed to complete the southernmost leg of the rally, with aerial searches having to be conducted to find missing cars. Some competitors, in desperation, went off-route and found their own way out of the African continent. The oil crisis of 1973 led to few factory supported cars, with the winning car and many others being entered by privateers rather than manufacturers. Throughout the rally, the car was driven by 3 keen Australians, Andre Welinski, Ken Tubman and James Reddiex. The car started life as a on the 13th of December 1973 in Paris. A special request was made to the factory for no soundproofing, as well as the suspension being modified by the Citroen competition department. A lower ratio final drive was used. A compass was used throughout the journey, sat on the co-drivers lap. The car survived the gruelling rally, despite many close calls with disaster. James Reddiex summed up his experience with the car; ‘The car went fantastically well – it went better than I hoped, but as good as I expected’. The car had another exciting chapter opened in 2013 when it completed the 2013 Peking to Paris rally, a re-run of the 1907 race which begins at the Great Wall of China and ends in the streets of Paris.