Career
He is referred to by his nickname "Supervan". He received his Springbok Colours in 1976 and his South African National Colours in 1997. Van der Merwe began his racing career in 1967 racing saloon cars.
Van der Merwe did exceptionally well in the 1984 24 Hours of Le Mans where he finished 3rd on debut.
In the 1986 Le Mans race, Sarel pulled in a lap early and Jo Gartner took over. A lap later the suspension broke and the car veered off the Mulsanne Straight in the middle of the night and Gartner was killed.
His South African rallying days were extensive and colourfull, and he displayed spectacular driving skills even under severe weather conditions. He started off with a private Doctorate.K.W. around 1965, a motor car that had the reputation of being unbreakable, even so by Van.
He then moved up the ranks to sport a works-Ford Escort Mk II British Dental Association (Belt Driven Assembly), the state-of-the-art machine around 1975−1979.
The yellow car was jointly sponsored by the Ford Motor Company and Southern Suns hotel group, and later in the blue colours of Kreepy Krauly (South Africa). After leaving Ford because of a disagreement, Supervan had a short stint in the Datsun 160Y and Datsun Stanza, teamed up with United Kingdom rally ace Tony Pond around 1980. But van der Merwe always complained that his lanky body did not fit into the smaller Japanese cars.
His final rally successes were in a factory team Audi Sport Quattro (1981−1986) with his rally swan song in the Volkswagen Golf front wheel drive hatchback in 1988.
His co-driver/navigator was the ever-faithful Franz Boshoff, also a crowned Springbok, through all the years rallying with Ford, Datsun, Audi and Volkswagen. He retired from competitive motor racing on 23 November 2002 after Round 12 of the Vodacom Power Tour at Kyalami, but he is still seen around some motorsport events, organising a few events and raising publicity for the sponsors of these events.