Collection: The Safari Rally Collection

Three countries. Three legs. A route that no longer exists.

In May 1953, a group of drivers left Nairobi to cross Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania — five thousand kilometres of powdered sand, flooded farm tracks and Rift Valley escarpment, run in the middle of the rainy season on roads that were barely roads. It was called the East African Coronation Safari. It became the East African Safari Rally, joined the World Rally Championship, and for two decades was considered the hardest motorsport event on earth.

There were no special stages. The whole route was the race. Most years the majority of the field never made the finish ramp. In 1974, sixteen cars out of ninety-nine made it home.

Each country counted as one leg. Hence three coffees.

And running behind the whole thing, at half the pace and twice the load, were the Land Rovers. From 1948 onwards the Safari Land Rover was a fixture right across East Africa — and the rally support convoys were no different, stacked with spare wheels and jerrycans, shadowing the works cars through the dust. Nobody puts the support vehicle on the poster. Nothing finishes without it.

That's the bit we liked.

Then it ended. Uganda came off the route in 1973 under Idi Amin. Tanzania followed in 1974 as politics closed the border. From then on the Safari ran in Kenya alone. The three-country rally ran from 1953 to 1972. It has never run again.

Why East Africa. We didn't pick a theme and then hunt for coffee to fit it. We found three exceptional East African coffees and realised the rally had crossed all three countries — the same ground, the same red dust. East Africa is where coffee actually comes from: Kenya for brightness, Tanzania for depth, Uganda for a smooth chocolatey arabica almost nobody expects.

Three legs. One route. Gone since 1972.

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