“A giddy lot, these rallyists:” following the 1960 Monte Carlo rally

After our recent assemblage of East Africa Safari Rally videos from British Pathe, we initially thought to pull together a similar compilation of BP videos focusing on the Monte Carlo Rally. Then we saw that the film producer has released no less than 45 film clips covering the rally from 1930 to 1970 to YouTube – far too many to embed into a single post. So instead, let’s take a look at “The Road to Monte Carlo,” a 15-minute film covering the 1960 Monte Carlo Rally that British Pathe produced for BMC, which unsurprisingly follows a handful of BMC cars – Austins, Minis, and the like – from Paris to Chambery and then on to Nice, but also includes some footage of various other cars in the rally. Nothing comprehensive here (after all, Mercedes-Benz 220SEs swept first through third places that year, something BMC wouldn’t likely have wanted the British public to know), but plenty of footage showing the varied and oftentimes gorgeous terrain the cars crossed during the rally.