Björn Waldegård the original winner of the World Rally Championship for drivers in 1979, has passed away at the age of 71 following a battle with cancer.

After being a championship for manufacturers only from 1973, the WRC first awarded a driver’s title in 1979 and Waldegård won it driving both a Ford Escort RS1800 and Mercedes-Benz 450 SLC.

Waldegård was one of the sport’s trailblazers, from his 1962 debut in his homeland of Sweden in a club event through to his final WRC event in the 1992 East African Safari Rally. He drove just about everyone one of the great rally cars of each era, always able to position himself to have the best machinery at his disposal.

When Toyota got serious its then driver and director of Toyota Team Europe, Ove Andersson, stepped aside from driving to concentrate on running the Japanese car giant’s rally effort at the end of 1979. There was only one man to take the wheel and that was Waldegård. He would score six victories for Toyota, including victory at Rally New Zealand in 1982.

In total he won 16 WRC events between 1975 and 1990. He may have been a Swede but he was a master in Africa winning the Safari three times and added three other victories at the Ivory Coast Rally.

Waldegård will also be remembered for competing in Australia’s famous Southern Cross Rally aboard an Escort. He even appeared in the famous Australian event aboard a works Ford in the same year he won the inaugural WRC driver’s title.

Despite retiring from the WRC, Waldegård contested various historic events for fun, most notably the East African Safari Rally. His final rally win came on the Kenyan event at the age of 68.

VIDEO: Waldegård, Hannu Mikkola and Gunnar Palm drifting in the snow in 1979

VIDEO: 1986 Safari Rally

VIDEO: Waldegård in 2006 at a rally demonstration