Much as I admire my fellow North Americans when organising retro-rallies and recreations of famous performance drives, nobody beats the Brits at this game. Consider "the 2008 London to Sidney rally". To quote the organisers, "forty years ago the idea of traveling halfway around the world in a family car captured the imagination of the man in the street whose experience of foreign travel was limited to a one week package holiday on the Costa Brava. The Daily Express provided the £20,000 prize fund and the publicity that attracted 80,000 spectators to the start at Crystal Palace to cheer away the 98 cars as they set off through central London on the way to Dover. The Regulations were a model of simplicity... one minute per minute late at a control, 24 hours for missing a control, exclusion for everything else - replacing engines or bodywork, working on the car in Parc Ferme, approaching a control from the wrong direction and leaving bills unpaid."

No other rally attracted so many super-stars. Innes Ireland had been a Grand Prix driver for six years, Mike Taylor had also driven for Lotus, Giancarlo Baghetti had driven for Ferrari and was a works driver for Alfa Romeo. Andrew Hedges raced in long distance events like Le Mans and Sebring for BMC, Rosemary Smith had won the Tulip Rally. John Sprinzel was a former British Rally Champion. Well, friends, you needn't be a super-star to compete in the 2008 event. All you need is the car (authentic cars of the Sixties) and the cash. Imagine, for example, airlifting out of India in giant Russian Antonovs! Leaving London on October 12th, 2008, the overland event will have its most arduous miles crossing India and Australia. Meanwhile you may spot me on the streets of Sidney, BC, hat in hand, desperately raising funds to compete. That's former winner Andrew Cowan in the photo.