How to recreate the 1960 RAC Rally fuelled by horrible coffee and lovely Tunnock's Teacakes

It started with lunch at the RAC Club with Erik Carlsson and ended with one night's sleep in a working week. And my most outrageous expenses claim ever.

The story that highlighted the last decade of my working life included a gestation period spanning two of those 10 years. But it was, without doubt, absolutely worth it.

Pall Mall's finest prawn cocktail done, 'Mr Saab' told me about the adventure that was the 1960 RAC Rally, an event he and Stuart Turner had won at the wheel of a Saab 96. Starting from Blackpool, on Monday November 21, it went north to the top of Scotland before tumbling, tired and emotional back down Britain to Brands Hatch for a Friday afternoon finish. That, Carlsson suggested, was a rally.

"You should do it," he said, that big, booming voice leaving me in no doubt that I really should.

He gave me rough route details, but, typically, Turner turned out to be outstanding on the detail and he filled in the gaps to give me pretty much the precise itinerary the 1960 RAC had followed.

That event was, of course, a special one. It was the first time a timed special stage had been included in the route. In fact, there were four - but the first ever was Monument Hill, just outside Dalmally in Scotland.

Lunch with Carlsson was the summer of 2010 and by late summer, Saab UK had agreed to loan me a period 96 rally car. I want to say it was the same car Carlsson and Turner won the event in, but I can't remember. But it was a pukka, period car in all its three-cylinder, two-stroke glory.

Saab couldn't have been more helpful and agreed to send a chase car to follow me on the whole 2000-mile route. How cool was this going to be?

So, 50 years and one week on from Carlsson and Turner leaving Blackpool and heading north, Evans and snapper Drew Gibson would be doing the same.

But as the departure time approached, I became concerned at the prospect of driving a not-even-40bhp car up and down Britain without using any motorways - apart from an eight-mile stretch of the M6, known in 1960 as the Preston bypass. "We could be there for weeks, traffic's a bit worse half a century on," I thought.

The Hydro Hotel served really nice porridge - quite possibly in the same bowl, certainly next to the same wallpaper Carlsson had enjoyed his breakfast 51 years earlier

So Saab suggested we tow the 96 most of the route and, when we want a picture, we drop the car off the trailer, hide the towing apparatus and shoot the shot. Nobody would know. Good plan.

Then it started to snow and didn't stop. Scotland became impassable and the whole thing was off. I didn't dare tell Carlsson or Turner.

All that planning had come to nought and that bugged me. The whole trailer idea had rankled a little bit as well. But I still wanted to do it.

So, if we were going to do this, we had to do it on our own, like Carlsson and Turner had. We had to front-up, get out there, brace ourselves against the elements, demonstrate our mechanical fortitude, dirty our hands and feel some pain.

Or we could just call the lovely Nick Perry in the Porsche press office and ask if he had a new 911 Turbo free for a week. So, in the end we ditched Sweden, went German and enjoyed 14 times the power and twice the driven wheels.

On Monday November 7 2011, Gibson and I departed Blackpool and its illuminations (from memory if was around 6pm in the evening) and headed north and east. The first major halt was scheduled for 6am the following morning in Peebles.

We were late. We'd got a bit lost and were very tired. Fortunately, the Hydro Hotel served really nice porridge - quite possibly in the same bowl, certainly next to the same wallpaper Carlsson had enjoyed his breakfast 51 years earlier.

Out of there we went and up to Glasgow, up Rest and be Thankful (one of Scotland's most famous hillclimbs) and onwards towards Monument Hill.

Britain's first ever special stage was where Carlsson won the 1960 RAC. He and Turner were fastest up the two-mile test in under three minutes. That might not sound too special these days, but don't forget, he had 38bhp and was going uphill. So, how did he do it?

"I have no idea," says Turner. "I had my eyes shut for most of the time. But I do remember spending a lot of the time in the air."

Long-since sealed, the asphalt road has changed in surface, but not in contour and context. Gibson and I marvelled at the commitment the Swede would have shown to better 180 seconds.

Marvelling done, Inverness called and a Tuesday night reservation in the Drumossie Hotel. Again, the same place the rally had stopped. And again, little had changed. A night's sleep was very welcome before Wednesday dawned and with it came a figure of eight loop through the Highlands and back to the Drumossie for 5am the next morning.

Fuelled by horrible coffee and lovely Tunnock's Teacakes, we kept to time through that section. By day we passed the odd tractor and a couple of sheep, but by night there was nothing to trouble our two turbos and 500 horses.

At times, I hated it

Getting back to the hotel in the dark on Thursday morning, Drew and I were knackered. That's when Carlsson's words came back to me: "When you come south, that's when it hits you..."

On just one full night's sleep since Monday, we were about to drive south from Inverness to Brands Hatch. And this was Thursday morning. And still we weren't using motorways.

In the nicest possible way writing this now, it's fair to say it was at this point back then that Gibson's chippy Geordiness started to grate. I'd had enough of "the light's shit..." and "if only we'd been here yesterday..." or even "do you want another apple?" Enough with the apples. I'm clearly a Teacake man.

At 2am on Friday morning and we were at a test on Elvington airfield. Two hours later, it was Cadwell, two hours later Mallory and then, mercifully, sometime on Friday afternoon (it was after lunch and before it went dark) we arrived at Brands Hatch for the 'finish'.

The original route was 2000 miles, but strangely our odometer measured a few more, it was almost as though we'd got lost here and there... But we'd done it. Monday to Friday, top to bottom of Britain on one night's sleep, an ocean of Red Bull and a significant lake's worth of espresso.

At times, I hated it. Almost running out of petrol outside Braemar was a lowpoint. Rolling onto the forecourt of the filling station in Blairgowrie quite the opposite.

The 911 was predictably stunning and thirsty (the fuel aspect of my expenses alone topped £600), the route magnificent and the company - Gibson being a rally man - superb.

What made the job more memorable was that it came shortly before my father passed away. Being able to sit at his bedside and tell him my take on Carlsson's story was special.