Pauli Toivonen

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Pauli and Henri Toivonen.

Pauli Toivonen Born August 22, 1929 in Jyväskylä, Finland, Died February 14, 2005 was a Finnish rally car driver. He drove for Citroën, Lancia and Porsche and had many successes to his credit. Pauli was the father of Harri and Henri Toivonen.

Whilst Pauli Toivonen was mainly known for driving rally cars, he also drove for Porsche in World Endurance Sports car races and in the 24 Hours at Le Mans in Renault Alpines.

Toivonen was awarded a controversial first place on the 1966 Monte Carlo Rally after a protest by the Citroën team manager against the top finishing British cars. As a result, the top three placing Minis of Timo Mäkinen, Rauno Aaltonen and Paddy Hopkirk and Roger Clark's 4th place Ford Cortina were disqualified. The reason given by rally officials was that the headlamp bulbs were not homologated following a last minute rule change. Toivonen was so embarrassed that he boycotted the post-rally awards ceremony and never drove for Citroën again.

As a result, Pauli did not brag about his victory in the prestigious Monte Carlo rally because he felt he had not deserved the victory. However, when his son, Henri came first the same event twenty years later - this time in a convincing manner - Pauli was heard to say: "Now the name of Toivonen has been cleared."

Pauli was European Rally champion in 1968 and won four other events for Porsche in the same year.

Henri Toivonen and Sergio Cresto (his co-driver) both died when their Lancia left the road and caught fire during the 1986 Tour de Corse. Henri was just 29 years old - having achieved more in his short life than most rally drivers manage in their entire careers.

[edit] Notable Victories

Year	Rally	Finish	Car	Co-driver
1961	Thousand Lakes Rally	2nd	Citroën	Jaakko Kallio
1962	Thousand Lakes Rally	1st	Citroën DS19	Jaakko Kallio
1963	Monte Carlo Rally	2nd	Citroën DS19	A. Jarvi
1965	Thousand Lakes Rally	3rd	Volkswagen 1500S	Kalevi Leivo
1966	Monte Carlo Rally	1st	Citroën DS21	E. Mikander
1967	Swedish Rally	6th	Lancia	Ahava
	Tour de Corse	2nd	Lancia	M. Tiukkanen
	Thousand Lakes Rally	7th	Lancia	Salonen
1968	Monte Carlo Rally	2nd	Porsche 911T	M. Tiukkanen
	Acropolis Rally	3rd	Porsche 911T	M. Kolari
	West German Rally	1st	Porsche 911T	M. Kolari
	East German Rally	1st	Porsche 911T	M. Kolari
	San Remo Rally	1st	Porsche 911T	M. Tiukkanen
	Castrol-Danube Rally	1st	Porsche 911T	M. Tiukkanen
	Geneva Rally	1st	Porsche 911T	Vihervaava
	European Champion
1969	Acropolis	1st	Porsche 911S	M. Kolari