Half a dozen Kiwis are set to embark on a real-life marathon that to some will resemble the "Wacky Races".
Ahead of the Kiwis - mother and daughter duo Heather and Jo Worth, father and son Bruce and Harry Washington, Chris Pike and Colin Smith - and over 100 other teams is over 13,500 kilometres in the Peking to Paris endurance rally.
Vehicles range from a 1915 American LaFrance through to a 1977 Mercedes-Benz 280E and their arduous race visits 11 countries, After Sunday's start in Beijing (formerly Peking), the borders crossed take the trek through Mongolia, Russia, Belarus, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Italy, Switzerland and finally France for the finish on July 13 in the centre of Paris.
Auckland mother and duo team, Heather and Jo Worth, are one of only two all-women crews and have spent a small fortune entering and preparing their 1968 Volvo Amazon car which they bought in Howick a few years ago.
With the entry fee around $50,000, Heather quips it has been like a "little open drain for funds" and she reckons it will be the last chance they will be able to afford to do it.
They are, however, not novices in endurance rallying, having already completed the Road to Mandalay in February 2015.
"I'm feeling quite excited about this. We thought the day would never arrive," she said from Sydney a few days before heading on to Beijing.
While this is their second big endurance event, she says the P2P is "much bigger, more daunting."
Weight is a really big issue and they will only take one small carry bag of clothes each with t-shirts, shorts etc.
"We have to carry a large number of spares, two extra tyres and aim to rotate the tyres every couple of days.
"The back seats have gone as they are too heavy as have the carpets and the car has been fitted with a big new petrol tank that can take 90 litres.
"It will be extremely noisy but we have to make the sacrifices to keep the weight down."
The car has undergone other alterations, including final strengthening work in Britain before being shipped on to Beijing.
"They are really well known for endurance rallies. We really need it to be super super strong and the place we sent it to has prepared other cars for rallies like this."
They are racing under the moniker "Team Xena" which they said was an easy decision with car called an Amazon and the fact they were an all female team.
"Team Xena" could, however, easily be "Team Kiwi" as their car is black and will be adorned with Silver Ferns.
Heather, a professor and head of an international HIV research group at the University of New South Wales, will have no regrets if this is her last endurance rally before she plans to retire back to Auckland in a few years.
"It is tough work... tough long days... you need to be very organised" she says, adding that relationships are also tested.
"There are some days when you have pursed lips with each other. But it is really, really good to do this with my daughter. This has helped bring us closer together.
"The first rally I did was quite soon after my husband passed away. It was a great way to get myself up and running again."
Meanwhile, the Washingtons (from Timaru) are expecting to rely on some good old Kiwi ingenuity to get them to the finish line.
While Harry Washington, at 19, will be one of the youngest competitors, his dad Bruce will be in his third P2P driving his 1929 Chrysler 75 roadster after also completing the New York to Alaska event in 2012 and another around the bottom part of Africa in 2014 (both in a 1937 Dodge coupe).
For Bruce there seems to be a bit of unfinished business.
"In 2010 the motor blew up in Mongolia. We begged, borrowed and shared a ride to finish.
"We got to the end, but it was an empty feeling and decided to comeback in 2013 for another crack.
"Even though we bent the front axle on the third day we got to the finish with some Kiwi ingenuity and were first in class, second overall, won the team's event and second in the European Cup for cars up to 1940."
"There's a lot of luck in it, things can go wrong at any time and we're up against multi-millionaires. I know of one who has spent 600,000 on a car. The money is mindboggling.
"Our aim is to get to the end in one piece. It's an adventure. It's an endurance rally of man, machine, the climate, the food."
Bruce says in today's world which is overly complicated by health and safety the rally was "one of the last great adventures".
"It is a challenge."
He believes many competitors are in for a shock and those with real "life skills" would prosper on the journey.
"It's Kiwis can do and Kiwi ingenuity," Harry quips. "The number eight wire we can do it. It's about overcoming adversity."
Teams face daily travel of up to 600-700 kilometres, many of which will be special stages and long hours of travel.
Bruce Washington said their car, while still possessing its original brakes, engine, radiator, chassis and differential is "on steroids".
"It has a five-speed gearbox and the modern technology we've been able to use has doubled the motor's power... that gives it more horsepower and torque to climb the hills.
"We've re-made better what was old.
"It's got attitude. It's a car with balls," Bruce Washington says, in explaining that was to do with a decorative addition hanging off the middle of the rear bumper.
Top speed he touts as 147 kilometres per hour but won't reveal where that was achieved.
You can follow the exploits of Team Xena on their Facebook page and the Washingtons on the website, Peking2Paris.kiwi.
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