1980 - The news is true, but...

...not those, not there and not then. The rest fits.

"The Finnish-Swedish pair pulled off a rare feat: they drove the Ford Escort RS to victory in very bad weather conditions - and won this round of the World Rally Championship again, for the eighth time in a row. The four-day, 2700 km RAC Rallye, as we reported, was won by Hannu Mikkola and Arne Hertz. The colour picture was taken at the gas station outside Sutton Coldfield." (source: arcanum / Autó-Motor)

♠

No. The picture wasn't taken at the Sutton Coldfield gas station, or even in England at the traditional Lombard RAC Rally, but somewhere in Africa at the Safari Rally. The date of the picture is not 1979, as the writing suggests, but two years earlier: 1977. And then, of course, it's not the Mikkolas at the wheel, but the Björn Waldegård - Hans Thorszelius duo.
The rest is true: the 1979 Lombard RAC rally was indeed won by Hannu Mikkola and Arne Hertz in a Ford Escort RS 1800 MK-II.