Panama to San Francisco via Havana - Feb 07 CANCELLED

Posted: June 15, 2006 3:54 PM

Event Director Nick Brittan said: "On our recent Carrera Sudamericana rally over the roof of the Andes, the classics performed well. Jac Nellemann in his 1972 Mercedes SLC 350 won the class and was a credible sixth overall.

"Conditions were tough, but all eight classics finished, including John Tallis in his 1968 London-Sydney Marathon Volvo, which -- still in its original paintwork -- was a great attraction with the spectators."

Gerry Leumann in his magnificent 1926 shoulder-high Bentley Le Mans Tourer was another favourite with TV crews and photographers. On Panama-San Francisco, he will be using his immaculate 1959 Jaguar XK150 Roadster.

Event organiser TWE also has a category for 'other suitable vehicles', which was won on Carrera by David Miller in his rally-prepared Rover Streetwise.

Brittan and Mike Summerfield set off this week on the route survey through eight countries. "It will be mainly asphalt, but there will some good gravel roads and some tricky regularity sections," promised Brittan.

On the Baja peninsula, home to the famous Baja 1000 desert race, two routes are planned: one suited to two-wheel drive cars and another for the more adventurous in the off-road tradition.

The event will spend two nights in Havana, Cuba, and becomes the only rally ever to have visited this country, where classic American cars of the 1960s are still used as well-preserved daily transport.

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Trans World Events

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26/02/06
A RALLY WITH ROMANCE - AND A FREE CIGAR
A rally which takes you to Havana and gives you a free cigar.
That's the latest innovative event from Nick Brittan's Trans World Events organisation.

Will it work? "Within a week of launching it, we sold five entries to competitors from the UK, Australia and South Africa," said Brittan. "So it seems to have a certain appeal. Maybe it's the free cigar that's the attraction."

Its title is 'Panama to San Francisco via Havana' and it's a 25-day, eight-country adventure drive, starting from Panama in February 2007 and tracing a route through the tiny Central American countries, taking time out for leisure stops at Caribbean reef resorts.

Brittan's advice is, don't swim in Lake Nicaragua - it's the only place in the word where there are freshwater man-eating sharks. But there are two lazy days for swimming and eating yummy seafood on the barrier reef resort at Ambergris Caye, off the Belize coast.

Cars will be parked in the fashionable Mexican resort of Cancun and a plane takes competitors to Cuba for two nights in the beautifully-restored, Moorish-style hotel in which Graham Greene wrote 'Our Man in Havana'.

But it's not all swimming, puffing cigars and pretending to be Ernest Hemingway. There are three days of hard driving up the Baja Peninsula, following the demanding route of the famous Baja 1000 desert race.

There are just 35 places on this exclusive event for 4wds and suitable classics. For those who have neither, Brittan has a buy-back deal on Toyota 4-door pickups. Simply fly into Panama, pick up your pick-up and hand it back in San Francisco.

"Yes, there's an element of luxury about it," said Brittan.
"But there's some good competitive hard driving every day as well. And I just couldn t resist the romance of a night in the very elegant hotel in the hills above Santa Barabra, which Hollywood stars Clark Gable and Lana Turner used as their weekend hideway."

This could be the only rally ever to offer schmaltzy romance, hard driving, culture in the form of Mayan ruins and a free cigar.

Trans World Events