Philip Young: Founder and GM of the Endurance Rally Association

Philip Young heads the Endurance Rally Association (ERA) a motor club he founded just over 25 years ago that organizes some of today’s most inspiring classic rallies. While some events are held in one country or continent, many, like the Peking to Paris, are truly trans-continental rallies over several thousand miles. It takes a certain character to organize, and get others inspired to assist with, the logistical tasks of route planning, transportation, marshalling, hospitality—even re-opening borders closed long ago by dictators such as Mao Zedong, Chairman of China’s Communist Party. Philip’s love affair with the world of rallying began as a child when UK rally teams, including works teams, would stop at his father’s garage on the A20 to refuel and prepare for flights from nearby Lydden Airfield in Kent. It led to competition too, first in national events and then, as a journalist, competing in the 1977 London to Sydney Marathon. More recently, he became a “record breaker” when he and co-driver Paul Brace drove a Fiat Panda from Cape Town to London—10,300-miles in just over 10½ days. VR’s European Editor, Mike Jiggle, took time to sit down with Philip Young to find out more about the man and what makes him tick. In this first part we find Philip’s passion for rallying and explore his early career.

VR: Sometimes childhood experience charts the course of our adult life, was it like that in your case?