When Willie Mavitty drove over the finish line of last weekend’s Killarney Historic Rally in Rory Galligan’s restored Talbot Samba, it marked the end of a year-long project paying tribute to someone who was instrumental in shaping his rallying career.

The late Rory Galligan, from Oldcastle, was a rising star of the sport when his life was tragically cut short due to Motor Neurone Disease at the age of 39, and he was a key figure in Willie’s development as he started out his own career.

Willie has since gone on to claim two Group N Irish Tarmac Championship titles, but in his formative years it was the knowledge imparted by Galligan that set him on the path to success, with the former Mitsubishi driver organising Peugeot’s Irish 205 Challenge series.

“Rory helped me in the 205 Cup with some tuition and car set-up, and we made a friendship along the way,” recalled Willie.

“Whenever I was driving a 205, Rory started the 205 Challenge in Ireland. That was how I got involved with Rory.

“At that stage I only knew of him from the papers and from his time racing against the likes of Mark Fisher and Garry Jennings, but the 205 challenge was the first time I met him.

“My father used to rally a Samba and dad and him were talking, and he said he remembered my dad competing in Donegal one year, and as a result Rory ended up getting a Samba as his first ever rally car.”

Quickly progressed

From Rory’s debut in the car he quickly progressed to one of Ireland’s finest rally drivers, and looked on course to make his mark on the world stage before illness intervened.

He had won both the Peugeot Cup and the 2004 UK Mitsubishi Challenge, and had secured a drive with the Mitsubishi team in the British Rally Championship for 2006.

He contested four rounds of the BRC and competed in Finland before he was diagnosed with the disease that would end his life six years later in 2012.

Willie’s friendship with Rory had endured until his untimely death, and when the opportunity came to purchase the Samba that Rory drove on his first event, Willie jumped at the chance.

“Last year, Treasa – Rory’s wife – phoned me up to say Charlie, Rory’s son, wanted to buy a car to learn to drive in, and she told him he had to sell something if he wanted to buy his own car,” he explained.

“They had a couple of 205s and the Samba, but the Samba was in a million pieces in boxes, so they agreed they would never be able to put it back together as half the stuff was missing and in rough-looking shape.

“Treasa phoned me up to see if I was interested or knew anyone who would be interested. I said I would go down and take a look at it, and we ended up coming home with it!”

On the way back home, with the car on a trailer, Willie and navigator Andrew Browne, who was a close friend of Rory’s, decided they would try to turn the rusted shell back into a rally car in time for the 2021 Killarney Historic Rally.

That gave them exactly a year to complete the restoration, and they accomplished their mission with hours to spare before the rally got under way last Saturday morning.

“The boys were still working on the car at 7 o’clock last Friday night,” said Willie. “The last time that car was on its wheels was 1994, and it had been lying in a million pieces since.

“Rory took in to strip it and rebuild it when he got sick, but he never got a chance to complete it.

‘A lot of help’

“Brice Hetherington gave me a lot of help but there were so many people who helped me out. On the Tuesday night before the rally there were nine people around the car working on it, and it’s not too big a car!

“It was amazing, the amount of help I received from all over the country. It is stickered exactly the way Rory had it, and everything is original the way he had it. Rory’s son, Charlie, helped Andrew make the stickers for the car, and it was nice to get him involved.

“Brice had to drive the car down the road to Killarney to get miles on the engine, and the first time I drove it was from the B&B to the Parc Ferme.”

In contrast to Willie’s normal rally routine where he is racing against the clock to win championships, the priority in Killarney was to get the distinctive Samba through to the finish, and the car managed the classic stages without a hitch.

“The event was great, but totally different to anything I had done before,” he said.

“Normally, you are racing against the clock, but we wanted to get to the finish.

“So many people wanted to see the car, and people were coming up to look at it and photograph it. It was different to what I would normally be at, but the car never missed a beat all weekend.

“It was good fun to drive as well. I thought it would be lacking in a bit of power with a small engine, but for the size of it, it went well, and the handling was good. It was good fun.”