Motorsport Memorial -

Harry Källström

Complete name: Harry Gunnar Källström

Birth date: 30.Jun.1939

Birth Place: Södertälje, Sweden

Death date: 13.Jul.2009

Death Place: Strömsund, Sweden

Nationality: Sweden

Gender: male

Notes:

Harry Källström
1939 - 2009

Harry Källström at the Rallye Sanremo-Sestriere - Rally d'Italia 1970, which he finished in second place overall, with Gunnar Häggbom in a Lancia Fulvia 1.6 Coupé HF.
Picture courtesy of Archivio Emanuele Sanfront. Reproduced under kind permission, all rights reserved.

Nicknamed by fans and contemporary press as "Sputnik", the Swedish rally legend, mustached and bearded Harry Källström had his debut in 1957 and competed in the World Rally Championship until the early 1980s.

Four-time winner of the Swedish Rally Championship, the first in 1959, Harry Källström started his career with his elder friend Gunnar Häggbom as co-driver, driving a Volkswagen for the Swedish importer. The pair raced together for almost 15 years. He joined the Swedish Volkswagen rally team, replacing his father, Gunnar Källström, who had been an official driver in the 1950s. In 1963 three Swedish crews obtained an astonishing 1-2-3 finish in the RAC Rally, Källström-Häggbom finished a remarkable second sharing a Volkswagen 1500S, behind the winning Volvo PV544 of Tom Trana-Sune Lindstrom, and ahead of Erik Carlsson-Gunnar Palm in a Saab 96.

His talent came to the attention of BMC, which gave Källström a Mini Cooper 1275 S for the 1964 season. He finished second in the Swedish Rally, winning the Swedish national title in 1964, and two years later he was second in the 1966 RAC Rally, this time with co-driver Rangvald Håkansson. He also drove with relative success with the British firm on the race tracks, scoring a class win, seventh place overall in a round of the 1964 European Touring Car Championship, the Kanonloppet at Karlskoga, Sweden.

After BMC Sweden stopped its rallying activities, in 1968 Harry Källström embarked on a six-year long working relationship with team Lancia HF Squadra Corse. At the wheel of their pretty and compact 1.3-litre front-drive Lancia Fulvia HF Coupé, he was internationally acclaimed as one of the best rally drivers in the world. In his first season for Lancia, Källström finished fourth in the Rallye Sanremo-Sestriere and sixth in the Rally Acropolis. He finished third in the Marathon de la Route - Nürburgring 84 Hours, held on the Nürburgring Nord-und-Südschleife, sharing a Lancia Fulvia HF with Raffaele Pinto and Sandro Munari, close behind two more powerful winning works Porsches of Dieter Glemser-Willi Kauhsen-Herbert Linge and Günter Steckkönig-Hans Schuller-Bernard Blank.

The following year turned out to be his best. Harry Källström captured the 1969 European Rally Championship, scoring a number of victories all around the Continent; amongst them were the Rallye Sanremo, the Rallye RACE in Spain and the prestigious RAC Rally. Along with the Italian Sergio Berbasio and the Englishman Tony Fall he was also an integral part of Lancia's success on the 38th edition of the Marathon de la Route - 84 Hours of the Nürburgring. When team Lancia HF presented their new 1.6-litre Lancia Fulvia HF model, Harry Källström once again won the RAC Rally and scored a second place in the Rallye Sanremo-Sestriere, finishing runner-up in the European Rally Championship of that year, behind Jean-Claude Andruet's Alpine Renault A110. He also obtained two consecutive third places in the Swedish Rally, in 1971 and 1972.

After the 1973 Swedish Rally, in which he scored fourth place, Harry Källström left Lancia and joined team Datsun. At his debut for the Japanese make he finished an impressive second in the 1973 East African Safari, driving a Datsun 1800 SSS with Claes Billstam as co-driver. Källström scored the same penalty points and the same time of 6h46min of team mate, the local star Shekhar Mehta in a Datsun 240Z. This was the first World Rally Championship event to finish in a dead heat. Several hours after the end of the rally, the Kenyan organizers declared Mehta with co-driver Lofty Drews of Kenya as the winners of the rally,because they set the fastest time in the opening stage of the rally. Harry Källström always claimed the victory.

In the same year Källström had an one-off drive for Team Salzburg, driving a Volkswagen 1303S, in which he finished tenth with Claes Billstam in the 1973 Österreichische Alpenfahrt. Back to team Datsun, in 1974 he scored a solid fifth place in the Rallye Portugal and fourth in the Safari Rally, and finally he took his only World Rally Championship win in the 1976 Rally Acropolis, driving a Datsun 160J with his new Swedish co-driver Claes-Göran Andersson. His beloved Rally Acropolis saw him driving that same car, achieving two fine third places in 1977 and 1979, co-driven by Claes Billstam.

"Sputnik" Källström decided to quit rallying in the mid-1980s, having only another one-off drive in the 1992 Svenska Midnattssolen Rallyt, at the wheel of a Suzuki Swift. He lived in Southern Ohn, Strömsund, Sweden, with his wife Sonja Lindgren, working as a truck driver for his own trucking company. Harry Källström passed away of heart attack on 13 July 2009, shortly after his 70th birthday. He was buried at Strömsunds pastorat.

Career Summary:

Sources:

Magazine Autosport, issue of 23 July 2009.
Magazine MotorSport, issue of October 2009.
Website Classic Motor, article "Harry Källström har avlidit" by Robert Gustavsson, page http://www.classicmotor.se/hortochhant/article483404.ece .
Website AUTOSPORT → Forums → The Nostalgia Forum, thread "Harry Kallstrom", page http://forums.autosport.com/index.php?showtopic=112530 .
Website RallyBase by Tjeerd van der Zee, page http://www.rallybase.nl/index.php?type=profileshort&driverid=4074 .
Website Jamtli Bildarkivet, page http://bildarkivet.jamtli.com/bild.aspx?bildnr=JLM.Hlg11061:109 .
Website Bilhistorie, page http://www.bilhistorie.no/media/sp2_ku.pdf .
Website Aktuell Motorsport, page http://www.aktuellmotorsport.se/Profiler/Driver.asp?DID=146 .
Website Svenska Bilsportförbundet, page http://www.sbf.se/2009/07/17/harry-sputnik-kallstrom-har-avlidit/ .
Website Rally Buzz, page http://www.rallybuzz.com/harry-kallstrom-rip/ .
Website Gravar, page https://gravar.se/forsamling/stromsunds-pastorat/stromsund-rotnaset/-/harry-gunnar-sputnik-kallstrom-57ee0 .