A complement of 70 classic cars fired up their engines and roared away from the start of the Road to Mandalay Rally on 1 February, setting off on a 25-day adventure from the historic Raffles Hotel in Singapore.
The event covers three countries (Malaysia, Thailand and Burma) and involves a demanding route that requires competitors to ford rivers, cross mountains and negotiate dense jungle tracks.
Rally director Phillip Young said: "This is the first ever crossing of the Thailand-Burma frontier by foreigners, and the first classic car rally through Burma. We have a broad mix of cars, with 29 from the pre-war era. It will be interesting to see how both the cars and drivers handle the terrain and high temperatures."
As if the dirt roads and inhospitable conditions weren't difficult enough, crews had to negotiate a 12km closed-road timed section shortly after leaving Singapore, which involved a twisting gravel track that carved a path through a palm tree plantation.
Gerry Crown, who won the 2013 Peking to Paris Rally, laid down the gauntlet early on, threading his Leyland P76 through the trees to despatch the first timed section in 7mins 1 sec.
Crown was followed closely by the ex-London to Cape Town Datsun 240Z of Grant Tromans, who was only four seconds adrift and matched by the Porsche 911 of Peter Lovett.
Crews have a further four days and 1750km of gruelling driving through Malaysia before they reach their first rest day in Georgetown, before later embarking on the rest of the 8000-mile marathon.
