2004. Alastair's 1993 purchase of a Rolls Royce turns out to be one of the best rally cars he owns.

In 1993, Naples, Florida, I bought the Rolls Royce at auction by mistake. I never went to the auction to buy a Rolls Royce but it just happened to be there. I had no intention of being a Rolls Royce driver and couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to be one. A Bentley maybe but a Rolls Royce… no. But it was so cheap because it was right-hand drive and nobody wanted it. I got it for a bargain, I paid $12,000 for it. I shipped it back to the UK and it was a great success. I’d had big Mercedes road cars for years that we used for picnics and trips to the theatre and so on but as soon as I had the Rolls Royce the ladies didn’t want to know about the Mercedes, they wanted to go in the Rolls Royce.

If I take the Rolls Royce to London and drive it to the Savoy or the Hilton or any major London hotel I can leave the car parked outside and the doormen don’t have a problem at all. If we go to a sporting event or a pop concert or something we can drive straight in to the VIP parking without even asking for a pass.

Having bought the Rolls by mistake I also rallied it by mistake. It wasn’t meant to be a rally car, it’s the last car I’d ever think of rallying. But around came the Berlin - Moscow - Berlin and all the other cars I had were broken because I’d beaten the hell out and not had time to fix them. So faced with a rally in 2004 I decided to take the Rolls and it was a hoot. Once again, nobody expected it to be quick, which it is. Nobody expected it to be agile, and it is. It’s a good, unsuitable car because it’s not unsuitable at all.

The Berlin-Moscow-Berlin went from Moscow, right round through Poland and all the Eastern European countries and back in a big circle. It had competitive bits in it, including hill climbs. One classic climb was 20k long and pouring with rain. We were up against Jaguars and Ferraris and, at the dinner which we had each evening, the organiser couldn’t help himself when he said: 'I don’t normally say this but today I have to, that fastest up the hill climb was Alastair Caldwell in the Rolls Royce Silver Cloud ' Not the Mustangs or anything like that but the unsuitable Rolls Royce.

• 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