Tony Fall

Richard Anthony Fall (1940 – 1 December 2007) was a British rally driver. He was born in Bradford. He began his rallying career as a club rally driver in a Mini. He was considerably better than his peers, however, and was soon spotted by the BMC team; this led to a drive in their works team alongside Paddy Hopkirk, Timo Mäkinen and Rauno Aaltonen. His first major international victory in the Mini was the 1966 Circuit of Ireland, where his co-driver was Henry Liddon.

Tony drove a Leyland (Austin) 1800, with co-driver Denis Johnson, in the 1968 Canadian Shell 4000 Rally, which ran from Calgary to Halifax, finishing 7th overall.

In the 1970 London to Mexico World Cup Rally, he participated with a celebrity co-driver, the footballer Jimmy Greaves, they finished 6th overall.

After he stopped driving, he became founder of the British Dealer Opel Team (DOT) as well as the self-willed but successful director of the Opel Motorsport Team in Germany, for which Walter Röhrl won the World Rally Championship for Drivers in 1982 with an Opel Ascona 400. Returning to England in the late 1980s Tony formed the company Opel Classics, with Steve Thompson Cars (UK Imrscher Car Dealership) and Tom May (Director of Irmscher UK). The company became responsible for restoring and maintaining ex Opel competition cars and they also built a small number of fully re-commissioned classics Opels's using the Opel GT model, cars being from California and also a Opel GT purchased by Tony from an Opel Dealership during the 1982 San Remo Rally. After this venture Fall became first the manager and later the owner/director of the Safety Devices company. Tony's last major outing was the 2003 Historic Rally Championship with co-driver Jonathan Hall-Smith where he competed with his Datsun 240Z.

Fall died after a heart attack on 1 December 2007 while a member of the organisation team of the East African Safari Classic Rally in his hotel room in Tanzania, leaving his wife Pat and two sons from a previous marriage.

External links

• List of Tony Fall’s major international rally results
• Opel Classic - Opel GT