FRENCH writer Verne published his classic adventure Around the World in Eighty Days in 1873 and in 2000 motor enthusiast Freddie took up the millennium challenge to enter the Around the World Rally in his Hillman Hunter.

Rallying and racing have taken Freddie all over the world in British vintage and classic car events. On the way he has won over 200 trophies including the outright win of the prestigious Around the World Rally.

While the majority of drivers leave it to their favourite garage to service the car to keep it up together for shopping trips, Freddie had to prepare his car himself to take him completely around the world.

With the 1969 London to Sydney World Cup Rally won with a Hillman Hunter, Freddie decided to find a similar model and set about preparing for one of his biggest challenges.

He said: "It had to be the car to use. We needed a competitive machine that could be repaired without computer-aided equipment ."

Freddie found a Hillman Hunter that had competed in a Peking to Paris rally and set about a complete strip down and rebuild, replacing every major component.

The car was partially rally-prepared, with roll bars and even foot plates on the back for the navigator to bounce on should they get stuck in the sand.

Freddie read and studied Andrew Cowan's book about winning the London to Sydney rally.

He said: " The book proved to be very useful I copied a lot of modifications that had been used on that event."

Although Freddie had competed in events all over the world, this was his first competitive drive around the globe. He said: "A challenge for the millennium just had to be done. I thought 22,000 miles in 80 days, that's only 270 miles a day average, that's easy - or so we thought.

"But my wife Jan and I hadn't taken into account the full-on competition it would involve - competition timed every minute of every day for 80 days"

With a frantic schedule to finish the car Freddie and Jan, his co-driver, set out from London Bridge on May 1, with school children at Newtown school following their daily progress as they faced one challenge after another.

Freddie said: "Generally the car was pretty reliable, although we had the odd problem which we thankfully always overcawme.

"After all it was a huge effort we made in this mundane Hillman against the Porsches and Mercedes.

"No one believes us when we say that we set out to drive around the world, not at all thinking we might, with our simple Hillman Hunter, be the winners.

"Having found ourselves leading after only a few days our competitive spirit kicked in and we were going to fight to win and, by golly, we did"

Freddie and Jan finished the rally, arriving back at London Bridge having lost only 52 minutes in the 22,000 of timed competitive motoring to win the Around The World Rally outright.

Freddie Giles has recently celebrated his 72nd birthday with a launch of his book about his life entitled Must I grow up? available from Farmer Giles Publishing, The Courtyard, Meadow Works, Court St, Trowbridge, BA14 8BR or email mail@farmergiles.net