In 1970 Donald Stokes ordered the BMC Competitions Department closed and disbanded. By the time the Marina appeared, it was becoming obvious that Stage Rallying was gaining popularity, and in early 1971 it was decided to use the new model in the November 1971 RAC rally. Luckily for BL, Special Tuning had a rally driver on its books by the name of Brian Culcheth and so with no team, no mechanics, no funding and initially no sponsorship a team of talented engineers developed a 1.3 coupé into a rally car, funded purely by sales of performance parts from Special Tuning.