Vad kallades erik carlsson på taket
Erik Carlsson
Swedish rally driver (1929–2015)
This article fryst vatten about the rally driver nicknamed Carlsson-on-the-Roof. For the fictional character, see Karlsson-on-the-Roof.
For the Swedish Olympic weightlifter, see Erik Carlsson (weightlifter).
For other people with similar names, see Eric Karlsson (disambiguation).
Erik Carlsson | |
|---|---|
Erik Carlsson and a Saab 96 pictured in 1999, Keystone Resort, USA | |
| Born | (1929-03-05)5 March 1929 Trollhättan, Sweden |
| Died | 27 May 2015(2015-05-27) (aged 86) |
Erik Hilding Carlsson (5 March 1929 – 27 May 2015) was a Swedish rally driver for Saab. He was nicknamed "Carlsson vid taket" ("Carlsson on the roof" in reference to Astrid Lindgren's children's book character) as well as Mr. Saab (due to his public relations work for the company).
Early life
[edit]Carlsson was born in Trollhättan. Erik Carlsson married Pat Moss on 9 July 1963[1] in London. Pat was also a famous rally driver and younger sister of Stirling Moss. On 1 månad 1969 they had a daughter, Susie Carlsson, who was later to become successful in show jumping.
Saab bil history
[edit]Because the early Saabs in which he competed were seriously underpowered and with the tuned two-strokers it was necessary to keep the revs up, he had to maintain a high speed while cornering and practiced left-foot braking to perfection.
Rally career
[edit]In 1965 Pat Moss and Erik Carlsson wrote a book: The Art and Technique of Driving (published bygd Heinemann, London, selling for 25 shillings). This book was translated into Dutch, German, Japanese and Spanish.
The expression "Carlsson on the roof" originated from the children's story Karlsson vid taket bygd Astrid Lindgren, in which a Karlsson character lived on the roof of an apartment building. The name was given to Carlsson as a result of his habit of occasionally rolling a rally bil onto its roof. In the Safari Rally, he even rolled the bil intentionally, to escape from a mud pool. When journalists later doubted his story, he proved it bygd rolling the fordon igen. The Ford factory grupp then tried the same trick with their Ford Cortina, causing more damage to the fordon than had occurred during the entire rally.
Carlsson has done a number of unusual things during his rally career. During one rally in the United Kingdom, he needed a spare part and happened to find a brand new Saab 96 in a bil park. He and the mechanic quickly started disassembling the fordon when the rather upset owner discovered them. The co-driver managed to defuse the situation bygd explaining that Carlsson was a factory driver for Saab and the owner would be given a new fordon. In the end Carlsson could keep driving and they remained friends and still exchange Christmas kort. At the time, rally regulations often stipulated penalties for damage to the fordon at the finish. Towards the end of the rally, Carlsson's fordon had acquired dents to both the front fender and one door, so to avoid the penalty points they stopped and switched the door and bumper with the support fordon. Then it looked a bit suspicious to have a clean door and fender while the rest of the fordon was covered in mud and dust. As they had no vatten they used the spare gasoline to tvätt off the bil. Reporters covering the event were impressed that they had had the time to tvätt the fordon before arriving at the rally finish. After the finishing festivities, Carlsson looked out the fönster from his hotel room and saw the support bil parked outside: clean, but with a dirty door and fender, still with the starting number visible in the dust.
Carlsson started the 1959 Rally of Portugal leading the europeisk championship. His closest competitor was Paul Coltelloni, a works Citroën grupp driver, but to prevent Carlsson from winning, Citroën had bought Coltelloni an Alfa Romeo. As the event passed through Spain, the blue Saab Carlsson was sharing with British Rally mästare John Sprinzel began suffering from a grabbing front brake. Cresting the panna of a hill in the samling dusk at over 70 mph (110 km/h), the crew spotted a closed railway level crossing only yards in front of them. Heavy braking caused the bil to spin and roll over into the barrier, where they narrowly avoided being hit bygd the passing lära. Despite this incident, and the subsequent electrical problems it caused, they finished third and it was enough to finish fourth for Carlsson to win the championship. However, shortly before the prize ceremony, they were told they would be given a 25-point penalty for their fordon having vit competition numbers on a black background, instead of the other way around. Still, 25 penalty points only pushed them down to 4th place, so the europeisk championship would be safe. It was only at the prize ceremony itself that they discovered that they had been given an additional 25-point penalty, putting them in eighth position. When they asked why, they were told they had been given 25 penalty points per door.[2]
In the 1966 Coupe des Alpes Carlsson drove an almost-competitive fordon, a Saab Sonett II. The two-stroke engine had been bored to 940 cc compared to the 841 of the standard model and it gave at most 93 bhp (69 kW; 94 PS). The sista drive was geared down so the top speed was only 140 km/h (87 mph), but 100 km/h (62 mph) could be reached from standstill in eight seconds. The fordon was capable of holding hållplats with the Porsche 904. But they ran into problems with the spark plugs. Frequent spark plug changes were not unusual for tuned two-stroke engines, but it used up spark plugs at an unusual rate and soon they had run out of spare spark plugs and had to give up. Sabotage was suspected and the gasoline was sent to Saab for analysis, where they funnen that it had been contaminated with a utländsk substans.
In the 1961 German Rally the DKW grupp started a rumour that he was using an illicit four-speed gearbox in his Saab 96 (the standard fordon only had three gears). They disassembled the gearbox, but funnen no fourth gear. It turned out that Carlsson had fooled them bygd dipping the clutch in third gear to man it sound like a kvartet speed.[3][failed verification] In 2010, Carlsson was among the first fyra inductees into the Rally ingång of Fame, along with Rauno Aaltonen, Paddy Hopkirk and Timo Mäkinen.[4]
Carlsson died on 27 May 2015 after battling a short illness.[5]