UK to South Africa road trip in a 3-wheeler bags duo world record and car trouble aplenty
22,500km, 22 countries, 1 Reliant Robin. Two friends’ intercontinental road trip was risky and rewarding. But why embark on such a journey?
Englishman Ollie Jenks remembers when his friend first pitched the idea to him.
“It was so ridiculous I couldn’t say no,” Jenks says.
The proposal by his Canadian buddy Seth Scott, a fellow lover of cars and crazy adventures, was for them to drive a decades-old British-made Reliant Robin car from London to the southern tip of Africa – a 22,500km (14,000-mile) journey through 22 countries – to set a record for the longest trip in a three-wheeled vehicle.
In March, they became the first people to drive a three-wheeled Reliant Robin across Africa, travelling from London to Cape Town.
Reliant Robins have cultlike status in the UK as humble three-wheelers that, in Jenks’ words, were designed to go to the shops and back in 1970s Britain. They went out of production in the early 2000s but remain loved in British culture.
Yet you could not find a less suitable vehicle to take thousands of miles through tropical jungles, mountain ranges and deserts down the west side of Africa. And that is precisely why Jenks went for the absurd plan.