UMM, Pajero or Navara — these are models that have left their mark on the Baja Portalegre 500. To celebrate the 40th edition of the event, the Portuguese Automobile Club (ACP) has brought together some of the most iconic off-road vehicles to have competed in the Alentejo event, in an exhibition that offers a true journey back in time.
Located at the heart of the service park, the exhibition, which is open to the public, showcases several decades of cars and motorcycles that are part of the event’s rich heritage. Among the highlights is the Mitsubishi Pajero that competed in the 1994 Baja Sagres 500 Portalegre with Carlos Sousa and Teles Forte, and in 1995 with Adriano Barbosa and José Gonçalves behind the wheel.
In 2006, the Baja Portalegre 500 was won by Marc Blázquez and Jordi Mercader, driving the Nissan Motorsport Navara Dakar. The vehicle had previously been driven by Kenjiro Shinozuka in the 2003 Dakar Rally, where the Japanese driver suffered the accident that forced him to retire from the event. Fully restored, the car is another major attraction at the exhibition.
Among the most unlikely historic vehicles to have competed in Portalegre are the VW Beetle, which lined up for the 1992 Baja Sagres 500 Portalegre with the crew of Luís Almaça and Saul Fernandes; the Citroën Visa entered by Jorge Carretas and José Brotas, which competed in the fourth edition (1990) and fifth edition (1991), winning the two-wheel-drive category in the latter and securing an excellent second place in Promotion B; and the Fiat 127 driven by João Fernando and João Pires, which took part in the 1987 Rali Maratona Portalegre Finicisa, the first of the 40 editions held to date.
Undoubtedly among the standout attractions of this year’s edition, UMM vehicles are represented by two iconic models: João Pena Monteiro’s UMM Cournil, which competed in the 1987 Rali Maratona Portalegre Finicisa and the 1988 800 km Finicisa Portalegre, and the 1990s-era UMM Alter Turbo Trophy, entered by the crew of Alexandre Amaral and João Bermejo.
Much more recent, the MINI John Cooper Works Rally, with which João Ferreira and David Monteiro won the 2023 Baja Portalegre 500, perfectly illustrates the evolution the discipline has undergone in recent years, as well as the emergence of a new generation of drivers such as Ferreira and Guerreiro.
The exhibition also features motorcycles from various eras, many of them representative of the models that competed in Portugal’s national off-road events and which have become part of the history of the bp Ultimate Baja de Portalegre 500.