"Excuse me," said the elderly lady standing next to me outside Buckingham Palace. "Do you know what time she will be appearing?" I glanced at my watch and replied: "Oh, I don't think it will be very long." In those moments, I reflected on how I had come to be standing outside the palace on a glorious, blue-sky July morning in 1988, waiting to be picked up by a black cab... that was going to take me to Sydney, Australia.
I had first come up with the idea some 20 years earlier. I was at Crystal Palace on a sunny Sunday morning in November 1968, somewhat in awe as I witnessed the gathering of cars setting off to do battle in magical-sounding faraway places such as the Grossglockner, the Khyber Pass and Wagga Wagga, as competitors on the London to Sydney Marathon rally.
But then life intervened. A career, marriage, raising a family and emigrating from old South Wales to New South Wales, Australia, meant it wasn't until I was wandering through the Royal Botanic Garden in Sydney with a new colleague 18 years later that the notion came up again in conversation. The like-minded - and aptly named - Edward 'Ned' Kelly liked the idea. "Let's do it, John," he said later that afternoon.
And so, outside Buckingham Palace, after two years of planning, it was finally happening. During that preparation we had grown from two to six. Guy Smith was an archetypical, never short-of-a-word London cabbie and Kanelli Tsiros was a Sydney taxi driver - both selected via competitions in their home cities. Award-winning Australian film-maker Mike Dillon would capture our every move, while Charles Norwood, a former London-to-Kathmandu expedition leader, was to be our unflappable mechanic and logistics coordinator, or 'fixer'.
この記事は Classic & Sports Car の October 2022 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
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この記事は Classic & Sports Car の October 2022 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です? サインイン
Mick WALSH
'Had someone said that this worn-looking titan would win the most famous old-car event, we would have laughed'
ALFA ROMEO STELVIO QF
Rewriting the rulebook on what an SUV can do, and how it can make you feel
FLOATING INTO THE FUTURE
Citroën's DS-replacing CX was at a cutting edge so sharp it still looks fresh today, and it had the drive to match - as five superb survivors reveal
"It's a car for posing in really"
Broadcaster Michael Buerk reflects on more than three decades with his beloved Jaguar E-type S1 3.8 fixed-head coupé
HONDAS DECK THE HALL
The Japanese firm's Los Angeles collection is now on public display for the first time in two decades
ABSOLUTELY buzzing
Honda's Si Civics brought agile, cheap fun to motorists long before the Type R name got anywhere near a hatchback
THE FEMININE TOUCH
In 1955, General Motors styling guru Harley Earl brought 11 talented women into the male-dominated world of automotive design. What was their lasting impact?
Out on a limb
Panther's innovative Solo 2 was something completely different, both for its maker and the sports car market
Restyles with substance
Panther Westwinds blended a passion for pre-war designs with modern-era mechanical usability and remarkably fine coachbuilding
Dead ringers
The Maserati Kyalami and De Tomaso Longchamp share much, having emerged from the same stable, but are poles apart at heart