Franz Wittmann is inextricably linked to a car: Audi Quattro! In 1981, he drove out a 21-minute lead in the January rally just eight days after its homologation and set the best time in all 33 special stages – a record for eternity! In contrast, even Wittmann’s triumph at the 1987 World Cup run in New Zealand in the Lancia Delta HF fades.
The 51-year-old Franz Wittmann is heading for his twelfth state championship title in the Toyota Corolla WRC with Co Heike Feichtinger at the Waldviertel rally.
APA, Raunig
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But Wittmann didn’t have a really great World Cup career. Hannu Mikkola received the one-cockpit in the Quattro as a co-developer of all-wheel drive technology and Audi also opted for Michele Mouton. As a challenger to Walter Röhrl, the outstanding pilot of his time, one woman was the story that could be better marketed. “I also had a skiing accident, so I had to pause and then there was a puncture during the comeback,” says Wittmann. Third place in Portugal was not enough as Mouton won. In Finland, Wittmann also fatally injured a spectator because he had overlooked the crowd that he had already reached the goal of an SP. “I can no longer manage it,” he admitted afterwards, “to drive into a trellis of spectators at 180 kilometers per hour and to trust that everyone will jump aside.”
From 1983, Wittmann only had semi-factory operations in the Quattro and from 1985 in a Golf GTI. Outstanding at this time was eighth place at the 1984 Acropolis Rally, before he was able to set up the fabulous trip to New Zealand in 1987 with Fiat-Lancia.
When he was preparing for the overseas World Cup run for four weeks, he also fell in love with the Golf. “As a pastime, I watched all the golf broadcasts on TV after my training in the hotel,” he says. What could be more obvious than to conjure up a golf course in the extremely hilly landscape in your home country? His GC Adamstal was supposed to be one of the most beautiful natural places in the world. And whoever visits him can occasionally see Wittmann himself grooming the greens on the tractor, because Adamstal is a family business behind which wife Rolanda, as well as sons Franz and Sebastian, stand.
Wittmann was torn out of the golf idyll again. Commercial councilor Fritz Frey from Toyota first provided Wittmann with Celicas and then Corollas. 16 further victories and a few national championship titles followed. After almost 80 victories worldwide, Wittmann finally turned his back on rallying at the age of 55 after he was elected President of Austria’s Golf Association in March 2006.
The corona crisis is now hitting golf course owners hard. Wittmann normally has 21 employees on the golf course, now there are only seven. “It can’t go on like this for a long time,” he muses on his tractor.
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