Mongolian madness

George Ratcliffe's first proper drive in his newly purchased Bentley was across Mongolia

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OH MY WORD! Central accelerator pedal, crash gearbox - learning to drive a vintage Bentley, my first proper' old car, was certainly a challenge. I'd had a lesson with an expert after buying the Bentley but it and its two sister cars were due to be shipped out to Mongolia quite soon, so we probably put in only about 100km practising on local roads in the UK.

The reason for the trip was that my father, Jim Ratcliffe [founder and CEO of the INEOS Group, which makes the Grenadier 4x4], was coming up to his 70th birthday and we wanted to celebrate it in style. We'd already done a couple of marathon motorbike journeys: for his 60th, about 15 friends and family rode across Africa, doing as much off-road as possible some 17,000km in 100 days - and about four years ago we rode from the top of Argentina to the bottom of Chile. To do that first trip, I also had to learn to ride a motorcycle.