My 6,000-mile adventure of a lifetime

‘Oh, you’ll hate it, Julia. It’s men talking about cars all the time. Really, really boring. You drive all day, it gets incredibly hot, you’ve got no air-conditioning and then – if and when you make it to your hotel – the men start talking about cars again. It’s awful. Never again.’ This is not the kind of pep talk I’m hoping for on the eve of our 6,000-mile expedition to the Syrian border with my wife in Frieda, our 1956 Bristol 405. Our friend, the novelist Raffaella Barker, knows what she’s talking about. Her husband, who sells classic cars for a living, comes to my rescue. ‘Zip it!’ he says, but the seed of doubt has been sown. Sceptical friends reckon this trip has all the makings of a divorce. In search of reassurance, I call in on Rob Kitchen, the maestro of Norfolk Classic and Sports Cars, who specialises in long-distance rally preparation.