I suppose you could say that I grew up with motor racing in my blood. My father, Loris Kessel, was a Formula 1 driver in the ’70s and raced against great drivers like James Hunt, Jacky Ickx, Mario Andretti, and his fellow Swiss, Clay Regazzoni. I was brought up surrounded by cars and engines and the track, and my racing career started at just 16.
When I heard of the rally from Lima to Cape Horn – more or less the length of South America, over 6,000 miles of tarmac, dirt roads, deserts, beaches and salt flats – I knew I had to experience it. My team prepared a 1968 Ford Shelby Mustang, restoring it and getting it race-ready. We shipped the car to Lima in Peru and set off.
The terrain we covered was so extraordinary that you could go from sea level to thousands of feet in the clouds in a couple of hours. The spectacular climb of the Andes, from Lake Paracas to Ayacucho (one of the highest points that can be reached by car), was an epic journey through incredible mountain passes. Before we got to the southern point of Argentina, where the drive ended at Ushuaïa, we had driven over the Andes, through Patagonia and traversed the extraordinary Salar de Uyuni Bolivian salt flats.
We took Fay jackets with us, and they proved invaluable – tough and lightweight, they could keep us warm at altitude and were not too hot lower down. The design was a Fay Archive Limited Edition 4 Ganci model with the brand’s signature carabiner metal hook fasteners, with a resin-coated canvas outer shell that was water-repellent, and insulation provided by wad padding. With its sheepskin-look collar and natural split leather inserts on cuffs and pockets, it looked the part for a gentleman racer too. We wore these every day.
We only had one scary moment, and it had nothing to do with driving. In Peru, we woke to find that the place was full of protests. There was some sort of mass demonstration going on and our car had been boxed in. I decided that the only way we could get safe passage through the protesters was to engage with them.
So, I walked over and introduced myself and asked them what their grievances were. I bought them some food and drinks as they were clearly hungry and thirsty, and explained why we were there and that we’d really appreciate being allowed to leave. They agreed, and so slowly we exited the town.
Nothing else unexpected happened, except that every day the landscape was unexpected. And breathtaking. These photographs are by Will Broadhead who came with us some of the way to document the adventure. The Mustang held up and so did the Fay jackets. It was the drive of a lifetime.
Peter Howarth has been the style director of British GQ and the editor of Arena,British Esquire and Man About Town. He is the co-founder and CEO of London creative agency SHOW and managing director of Secret Trips.
