Last race of the Tasman Series, Teretonga Bill Caldwell, Alastair's brother, is killed in his Brabham car.

After Bill died I stopped motor racing straight away and got a bit disenchanted by the idea of motor racing in general. We had a sponsor in those days: Shell. The Shell company used to encourage young men into garages because that was the only way they could sell their petrol. They couldn’t just open a petrol station; the only way to add a pump was to add one to a working garage. This meant they were very keen to finance young men who wanted to start up garages. Once the garage was established they could add pumps and sell their petrol.

So I went to Shell and said: 'OK, I’d like to start my own garage.' I was already married with two children and Ruth, my youngest daughter, had just been born and I needed some steady income.  So I went to Shell and said: 'You know I’ll be good at this garage business.' It was true, my skills had driven the partner out of the business; he'd got depressed by my presence. I came to work one morning and asked: 'Where’s Eric?’ and they said: ‘Oh Eric’s not coming to work any more, he’s retired.’ In fact Eric had given up because I was such a little smart ass.

I tried to get Shell to lend me the money and they said they couldn’t until I was twenty-five. I told them I could obviously do it as I was already very successful as a garage mechanic: I was only twenty and already a foreman in a garage and had five guys working for me. They said: 'Yeah but we can't give you any finance until you turn twenty-five.'

I asked myself: 'What shall I do until I’m twenty-five?'

'I’ll go to Europe, see what that's like.'

• 1943 Alastair's early years
• 1955 Licence to drive
• 1957 Alastair's High School years
• 1959 Evading the police
• 1960 Becoming a mechanic
• 1966 The Tasman series
• 1966 Leaving New Zealand
• 1967 Joining McLaren
• 1967 CanAm Door Catches
• 1967 Monza
• 1968 South Africa
• 1968 CanAm
• 1969 Driving the Formula 1 Cars
• 1973 Fittipaldi joins McLaren
• 1973 McLaren Team manager
• 1974 Montezemolo
• 1975 Hunt replaces Fittipaldi
• 1975 Hunt gets paid little
• 1976 Inventing the Air-Starter
• 1976 Six-speed Gear Boxes
• 1976 Misbehaving in Canada
• 1976 Japan
• 1977 Adidas Uniforms
• 1977 Changing Tyres
• 1977 Leaving McLaren
• 1979 Nelson Piquet
• 1980 Skirts on Formula 1 Cars
• 1981 Leaving Formula 1
• 1982 Making Lists
• 1982 Signing on
• 1982 Creating Space Station
• 1991 Highland Fling
• 1991 Classic Marathon
• 1992 Getting the Austin A35
• 1992 El Salvador
• 1993 Carerra Panamerica
• 1993 Centre of attention
• 1993 Nicest car in rally
• 1993 LeJog
• 2000 London to Sydney
• 2000 Porsche Racing
• 2000 Porsche Crashing
• 2001 Ferrari
• 2001 Inca Trail
• 2004 Berlin - Moscow - Berlin
• 2005 World Cup Rally
• 2007 Norway
• 2008 Liège-Brescia-Liège
• 2008 An Icelandic Odyssey
• 2008 North & West Africa
• 2009 West Coast America
• 2009 London to Casablanca
• 2010 New Zealand Festival of motor racing
• 2010 New Zealand Big Sky Adventure