London to Cape Town in a Ford Mustang.(Ran in October and November 1998)

The London to Cape Town starts from the Motor Show at the NEC in Birmingham on 23rd October 1998. Take a look at the organisers home pages for a full explanation of route, competitors entry list and I am told for updated stage results as the Rally is in progress. In addition there may be other people's web pages put up during the event. Try searching for these from time to time. I also plan to phone back regular reports that Ian Diment and Colin Stewart have generously agreed to type up and post on these web pages. If you find other outside links please let Colin know and he can post them here. 

The Rally lasts 41 days, crosses 24 countries and covers 12,000 Miles. Since the provisional map was drawn the route has had to be revised to avoid 3 separate War Zones. First the Sudan, then the Ethiopian boarder dispute and in the last couple of weeks the route through Yugoslavia has been dropped in favor of a longer route (without Cruise Missiles) through Hungary and Romania. 

I have entered in my 1965 Ford Mustang and I have 3 different co-drivers along the route. Ian Dobinson from Cadence in Bracknell is in the hot seat from London to Istanbul. Paul Grogan, owner of the Northern Healey Centre who prepared the car, is taking the Istanbul to Aqaba Jordan leg and Chris Podger, Cadence CE up until a few months ago, hops in at Aqaba for the hot and dusty bit down to the Cape. 

During the publicity build up to the event I was interviewed for Top Gear (Radio version) along with Phil Surtees my co-driver from the Peking to Paris event which we won last year. I got a full 5 seconds on air but the clip is interesting as the organiser, John Brown, describes the event.