Racecars come in all forms. From high-tech, hybrid single-seaters and endurance prototypes to production-based GT and Touring Cars, we love them all. However, there is an old saying that we enjoy repeating: Any car can be a racecar if you have the b***s to race it. And that’s exactly where this unlikely racing hero comes in.

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Humble Beginnings

Green-Go is a Ford Figo 1,4 manual that belong to Marcel Steenkamp. The car used to be his wife’s daily driver until it seemingly blew a head gasket. Marcel, a mechanic by trade, swapped his own car with his wife’s while he fixed the Figo. After fixing it, Green-gobecame his daily driver. But he had some plans for the little Ford.

Race Prepped

Soon Steenkamp stripped out the interior and installed a roll-cage. Next he started competing in rally-sprint events. Green-go remained his daily driver but on weekends he drives it to rally sprint events where it spends all day bouncing off the limiter. He doesn’t bother with a trailer he simply drives it back home at the end of the race day. Mechanically the car is completely standard. It has a stock engine, stock suspension, stock everything.

Click here to read about an unlikely Nurburgring hero.

Steenkamp, a native Afrikaans speaker refers to his car: “Well in Afrikaans we say Dit is my DKW: Dans, Kerk en Werk.” In essence he uses the car to go out, to church on Sundays and to work on week days.

More Ambitious

As if racing it in rally events wasn’t enough, Marcel had an even bigger goal in mind. He wanted to track race the little car. He found the ideal event in the form of the iLamuna endurance event that took place at Killarney a few weeks ago. Again, he didn’t bother with any modifications it for that event either. He and his team added the necessary safety gear, slapped on some stickers and raced it for nine hours straight. The best part… the day after the race he simply got back into the car and drove it back from Cape Town to his home to Villiersdorp, 100 km away.

Click here to read about the odd machine that we raced in the same event.

Not Fast

As expected of a standard 1,4 Figo, which has 62 kW when new, it is not fast. Green-go qualified dead last on the grid considerably slower than anything else in the field. However, the car ran faultlessly for nine hours rattling off lap after lap. It used nothing but fuel; not oil, not brake pads or even a second set of tyres. Thanks to the teams’ consistent running they finished 15th overall and 4th on Index of Performance, which is a measure of lap-time consistency with a best lap time of 1 min 47 sec. Incidentally, it also clicked over the 200 000 km-mark during the race.

We salute the team for their efforts and take our hat off to the most unlikely racing hero that is this Ford Figo.

Images by Corne van Zyl.