Freed from the usual minefield of rally regulations, the 1968 London to Sydney Marathon enabled participants to run any two-wheel drive car.

A seven-strong fleet of 1800s were developed by BMC Competitions for the epic event, which, thanks to Daily Express sponsorship, was to receive huge national and motoring press interest They were SMO 225G for Aaltonen/Liddon/Easter, SMO 226G for Hopkirk/Nash/Poole, SMO 974G for Fall/Wood/Culcheth, SMO 227G for Aussies Green/Shepherd/’Gelignite’ Jack Murray, VLM 128G for Hamilton/Stearns/Lees Spalding from the Navy and ORX 663F for the RAF crew Kingsley/Evans/Bell.

SMO 233G was the first of those SMO series to be built up from a bare shell by the Abingdon-based team for the Marathon.

Its task was to be the all essential survey car and, whilst it shared many of the modifications that were eventually employed on the six rally cars, it was not a full-blown Marathon car, lacking a ‘Roo’ bar and still having normal bumpers instead.

There were also d...