1992. Alastair is well received in his Austin A35. His popularity inspires him to name the car La Cucaracha.

We took part in the rally from El Salvador. When we got to Honduras we had huge crowds wherever we went, it was just amazing seeing the reaction of the people who just loved this rally. They hadn’t seen cars like the ones we were driving and they hadn’t had international visitors at all so when we got to Honduras there were 50,000 people standing in the middle of the town. The Minister came along: we were a really big deal.

The crowds loved the Austin A35. They liked it better than the flash cars because they could identify with it more; it looked more like the kind of car they would own. And so they ignored the Aston Martin, the lady in Aston Martin was quite miffed and didn't understand they all gathered round my Austin A35.

For a joke I bought a machine that go in your downstairs loo that laughs whenever you put the light on. I put it under the bonnet: they always wanted to look at the engine, and I’d open the bonnet and there would be a loud laugh coming from the engine. This caused much amusement. Some of the crowd said to me that the car looked like a cockroach. In El Salvador I had the idea to write ‘La Cucaracha’ on the front and back windscreens. Also, by sheer chance, I was in an accessory shop and they had some air horns that sang: ‘La Cucaracha, La Cucaracha,’ so I put them on too.

One of the joys of the rally for me is that I'm good at fixing cars because I was a race mechanic. It’s almost impossible for my car to break on me to the point that I can’t fix it. I spent the whole of this rally fixing my car. Bits broke, bits blew, bits flew off it. It was new to me because I’d only just bought it and driven it round the block and that was it; I send it off to Central America with no preparation experience with it at all. Big bits fell off it every day and I bolted them back on, made new bits, welded it up and glued it together. The engine collapsed so I took more and more bits out of the engine until I was eventually running on two cylinders. We got to the end, but I didn't come last; once again, we did not come last. 

• 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