2001. Having decided to take the Ferrari 330GT to the Inca Trail rally, Alastair and his navigator suffer all sorts of set backs on route.

I’d set myself an impossible task and the whole rally turned out to be an epic saga. People have written books about things far less interesting than this rally. They write about their stroll in the park in their Japanese 4x4s that don’t even need the tyre pressures checked whereas my Ferrari had a job-list before it got to South America. The jobs never got done because during the rally the suspension broke, the rear axle broke, the engine box broke, the suspension broke again, the rear axle broke again, wheels flew to pieces that I rebuilt out of shattered wheels, and so on. My navigator became ill while we were away, so he faded away on me, through no fault of mine. It was a nightmare journey but sadly, being quite a perverse creature, I actually quite enjoyed it. Despite the fact I worked on the car every night for 56 days until the early hours of the morning there was never a day when I didn’t rally. The majority of other cars failed because they got too tired or went the wrong way or couldn’t be bothered.

A friend at home who was an airline pilot tried to get parts to me by bringing them over himself. He arranged to meet us in La Paz but he never turned up because, when he got to Miami, he had to change flights and was stopped because of the heavy case he carried containing a Ferrari Differential. Someone in that airport had decided that it was unsuitable for taking on a plane. He explained to the lady at the check in that he was a Senior British Airways jumbo pilot by trade but she was unimpressed and called security, who told him he couldn’t put it on the plane. They all thought it was a risk.

So he decided to go to the loos, change his appearance a bit and check-in some place else. This turned out to be a mistake because they'd marked the ticket and was picked up at another desk with alarms and security, who tried to deport him. He was put straight on the next plane back to London but he managed to smuggle the part back on the plane, even though the Americans had told him it had to go by sea because it was far too dangerous.

I didn’t win anything but I finished the rally. It was the most fantastic trip over the most amazing roads. We had some great rally days driving at high speeds going through the Andes. We went up to 15,000 feet and down to sea level and then back up to 15,000 feet twice in one day.

• 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