The 1973 Swedish Rally (formally the 24th International Swedish Rally) was the second round of the inaugural

World Rally Championship The World Rally Championship (abbreviated as WRC) is the highest level of global competition in the motorsport discipline of rallying, owned and governed by the FIA. There are separate championships for drivers, co-drivers, manufacturers and t ...

season. Run in mid-February around

Karlstad, Sweden Karlstad Municipality (''Karlstads kommun'') is a municipality in Värmland County in west central Sweden. Its seat is located in the city of Karlstad. The present municipality was established in 1971 when the former City of Karlstad was amal ...

, the rally was the only snow and ice rally of the WRC calendar, a distinction it would keep as it remained a fixture of the WRC through the years. Only in 2007 would it finally be joined on the schedule by a second snow rally in

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the ...

Report

In 1973, and for several years afterward, only manufacturers were given points for finishes in WRC events. After the

Alpine A110 The Alpine A110 is a sports car produced by French automobile manufacturer Alpine from 1963 to 1977. The car was styled as a " berlinette", which in the post-WWII era refers to a small enclosed two-door berline, better-known as a coupé. The ...

s dominated the earlier Monte Carlo Rally, Sweden was instead taken by Swedish drivers

Stig Blomqvist Stig Lennart Blomqvist (born 29 July 1946) is a retired Swedish rally driver. He made his international breakthrough in 1971. Driving an Audi Quattro for the Audi factory team, Blomqvist won the World Rally Championship drivers' title in 1984 an ...

and

Per Eklund Per Torsten Eklund (born 21 June 1946) is a Swedish Rally and Rallycross driver. His nickname is "Pekka". In rallying he never made it to the very top but he has been very successful in his later rallycross career. Biography Saab works d ...

, both driving Swedish-built

Saab 96 V4 The Saab 96 is an automobile manufactured and marketed by Saab from 1960 to January 1980, replacing the 93. The 96 featured aerodynamic two-door bodywork, four-passenger seating and at first a two-stroke, three-cylinder engine, later a four-strok ...

cars. While

Jean-Luc Thérier Jean-Luc Thérier (7 October 1945, Hodeng-au-Bosc – 31 July 2019, Neufchâtel-en-Bray) was a French rally driver. He was the highest scoring driver in the inaugural World Rally Championship in 1973 and the only one to win three events. However, ...

did get an Alpine onto the podium in third place, it was the only such car to finish and he was one of only two drivers not of Scandinavian nationality to complete the race.

Results

Source: Independent WRC archive

Championship standings after the event

References

External links

Official website of the World Rally Championship

1973 Swedish Rally
a
Rallye-info
{{Rally Sweden Sweden Swedish Rally

Rally Rally or rallye may refer to: Gatherings * Demonstration (political), a political rally, a political demonstration of support or protest, march, or parade * Pep rally, an event held at a United States school or college sporting event Sport ...

Swedish Rally The Rally Sweden ( sv, Svenska rallyt), formerly the International Swedish Rally, and later the Uddeholm Swedish Rally, is an automobile rally competition held in February in Värmland, Sweden and relocated to Umeå in 2022. First held in 1950, ...