John Anthony Ambrose was born in Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire on August 12, 1933, Twice married and with two daughters, he was best known as one of the great British co-drivers in the BMC international rallying team during the 1960s.

However, he first came to fame as the co-driver in the three-man crew that won the RAC Rally in 1956.

Growing up in the Cotswolds where his father ran an agricultural machinery business, he was educated at Chipping Norton Grammar School and gained a scholarship in 1951 to read natural sciences at Jesus College, Oxford.

His international rallying career began at university when he re-established the Oxford University Motor Drivers’ Club after a previous ban by the proctors. Eventually serving as the club’s president, the OUMDC became one of the leaders in British clubman’s rallying during the 1960s.

In 1960, Tony Ambrose joined the new BMC rally team and competed most successfully with the outstanding Mini Cooper ‘S’, and the Austin Healey 3000 six (as illustrated).

International successes included class victories in the 1961 Tulip Rally, the 1962 RAC Rally, the 1963 Alpine and outright victory in the 1964 Tulip. The greatest win was probably the 1964 Spa-Sofia-Liege, mainly because it was known to be the toughest road rally ever held in Europe and certainly an event that would not be allowed in today’s safety-obsessed environment.

The champion driver Rauno Aaltonen praised his co-driver in the rally, saying: “Tony planned it all, he forced me to sleep even at moments when I wasn’t so tired. He even drove one 77-mile section at night in 52 minutes. We were going at maximum speed, 150mph, on cobbled roads amid unlit horses and carts, yet he was such a safe driver I slept through it all!”

1965 was a special year for Tony Ambrose when he co-drove Rauno Aaltonen to the European Rally Championship title, which at the time was the sport’s top international series. They finished the season with a second victory in the RAC Rally of Britain.

The BMC team had wins in the Geneva Rally, in Czechoslovakia, in Poland and in the Three Cities Rally, which went from Germany to Hungary.

BMC was the only official team in which Ambrose competed but it was a classic team comprising the top drivers of the day including Paddy Hopkirk, Timo Makinen and Simo Lampinen.

Ambrose continued with BMC until 1966, when he decided to devote more time to his business and his family. His last rally was that year’s RAC event in which he drove a Mini with Simo Lampinen, who remembers them rolling the car.

“It was a disaster,” Lampinen said. “When we rolled, all of Tony’s maps had flown out of the battered car and were scattered around Wales but we both saw no reason why we could not carry on. In the end the team manager Stuart Turner said the car looked more like a church on wheels than a car and for that reason we had to stop.”

After he gave up racing, Tony Ambrose still retained a link with the sport he loved and took a large part in the organisation of the first inter-continental rally; the 1968 London to Sydney Marathon and the London-Mexico Rally two years later.

He is remembered as a quiet man, unusually methodical in his work and a great enthusiast.

Aaltonen is seen as the thinking man’s rally driver but he admits: “I learned all that from Tony. He taught me that rallying was not just about understanding the sport but also understanding the culture of the people in various countries.

“People from my country, Finland, where we tend to look at the world from the top of the chimney, needed down-to-earth people like him to get the best out of us.

“The BMC rallying team was very much an effort where people worked together for the benefit of the team itself. Tony just wanted the best results.

“When he had to give up, he openly recommended me to fellow co-driver Henry Liddon. It was good advice, Henry, and I went on to win the 1967 Monte Carlo Rally together. Tony relished a challenge because it was something to think about and solve.”

Stuart Turner said that he always thought of Tony as the most intellectual part of the team and he was also an interesting bridge between the old school of gentleman rally competitors and the evolving generation of professionals.

Turner’s fellow BMC team manager, Bill Price, remembers Ambrose as a most capable driver in his own right, a great asset on endurance events such as the Spa-Sofia-Liege.

He was also instrumental in developing the science of pace-noting, a technique which was then in its infancy.

It wasn’t simply a case of finding ways of going faster round corners, it was about finding the correct route, because the organiser’s instructions in those days were far from perfect.

Outside rallying, Tony Ambrose was involved in a family decorating business in Basingstoke and running a tavern in Wales.

He was one of the oldest surviving winners of the RAC Rally event and had hoped to attend the Wales Rally GB 75 years’ celebration in December 2007, but ill health prevented his appearance.

Tony Ambrose died in Newbury on January 5 this year.

With thanks to The Independent’s obituary writer Martin Holmes