1993. La Cucaracha wins a prize for the nicest car in the rally.

Rallying in Mexico is fantastic fun because the more noise your car makes, and the more you can make it over steer and misbehave, the more popular with the crowd you become. And La Cucaracha makes a lot of noise and I could make it misbehave and it had the singing horn, which I sounded as the car was flying around the streets. I’ve been back twice now to do the rally and people always come up to me and ask: ‘Where’s La Cucaracha?’ I finished 32nd out of 110 in the original race.

I was sitting at the prize giving with a guy from New York who had with him his entourage: wife (and mistress I’m pretty sure), four mechanics, team manager, two vans and a Porsche 356. The cars and vans were all painted up beautifully and the crew were all wearing leather jackets with molten sleeves that had their names embroidered on the back above a picture of the car. The driver was sitting there at lunch next to me and I got the prize for the nicest car in the rally. There were two Germans who had air-freighted their Mercedes with a man paid to watch over it outside the hotel. They stood up and said: ‘No, no, no, ours is the nicest car.’ People threw food at them.

I got up and got my prize and I sat back down when the American guy said: ‘Jesus Christ, how much did your car cost?’ Well my car’s purchase price, entry fee, shipping and expenses for the rally were less than his $12,000 jackets.

• 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