Almost 70 cars left Hopetoun House in glorious sunshine on Monday, May 8 to embark on a rally that many at the end proclaimed “the best Malts yet” - and they promise to get even better as Peter Nedin brings fresh ideas to this established event. Plans for next year include starting and finishing at Stirling, in the shadow of its magnificent castle, and basing the central three days of the event at Aviemore so you don’t have to pack your suitcases every morning and unpack every night. Then the event gets even more ambitious in 2008, becoming the Celtic Malts with legs in Wales, Ireland and Scotland.

But back to 2006: the first challenge was a Special Test at Knockhill circuit - not the traditional three laps at the same average speed but a challenging driving test on circuit service roads that saw 16 cars lose gold medal status. It was closely followed by a little test regularity section to allow novices to get into the groove, then straight into the first proper regularity over the Ochil Hills, then almost immediately another through Keillour Forest. A main control at the first distillery of the day, Glenturret, was followed by a lovely run through Glen Quaich to Kenmore and baked potatoes in the Kenmore Hotel, next door to the fine home of the Queen’s cousin, Angus Ogilvy. A pretty run around Loch Tummel brought crews to the prettiest and tiniest distillery in Scotland, Edradour, then to the glorious Blair Castle, glistening white in the sunshine, for one of the faster tests of the rally. Two more regularities brought crews in exhausted but excited to Aviemore for the sting in the tail – a test that looked simple but foxed many. It resembled those giro toys we used as kids to draw flowers, but the challenge of going the right way around the cones in the right order and through the central gate at the right intervals proved too much for many at the end of a long, challenging day – only 22 cars achieved clean sheets and all faced the prospect of doing variations on the same test three more times as the rally progressed.

The experienced Ian Chalmers and Jane Webb took an early lead in their 1969 MGB roadster at the end of day one, but Howard Warren and Brian Goff in the 1972 Porsche 911S 2.4 were close behind, hotly pursued by George and Elizabeth Baird in the Sunbeam Tiger, while Elliot Dale and Trina Walsh had already stamped their mark on the pre-war class in their rapid Bentley Derby Special. Sadly a couple of cars had dropped out – the de Jong Jaguar XK120 experiencing gearbox problems shortly after the start, Graham Whitaker’s supercharged Wolseley Hornet Special succumbing to similar woes at lunchtime and Tony Newman’s Mini Cooper opting out at the same time with mysteriously vanishing oil pressure. John Abel’s 1924 Bentley 3/4.5-litre was back in the running, however, after propshaft worries on the second regularity and it was great to see the MGC GT of Hellmuth Carroux catching up at lunchtime after a mysterious lack of power had finally been cured by local classic car specialist Chic Doig of Cardenden, who dropped all other work to get them back in the rally.

The evening saw the entire rally sit down to a magnificent Highland banquet, complete with haggis piped in and addressed in traditional style.

Day two saw the rally head further north with two tricky regularities on the south side of Loch Ness including the notorious Corkscrew Pass climbing steeply up the south side of the loch with incredibly tight hairpins and short straights. A real challenge for driver and car alike, the Corkscrew soon shows you if you’ve picked the right car for the rally – and it bit back for Julian Pitts and Graham Briggs in the red TR4, when a combination of slippery surface and their race engine suddenly coming on song pushed them wide and over the edge, saved by a silver birch tree. Amazingly, marshals succeeded in dragging the car back on the road a couple of hours later and it was back in the rally, bent but unbowed, in time for the test at Mohammed al Fayed’s pink palace, Balnagown Castle. This was a first for the Malts and as well as being a beautiful location it added a very quick and fun test to the rally, complete with scarily narrow, rough and blind hump-back bridge. A control at Glenmorangie was then followed by the popular Littleferry go kart circuit, another long, rapid and challenging test, before crews split up for the only night of the rally where the field was divided between six different hotels in picturesque Dornoch and Tain. George and Elizabeth Baird had now taken the lead in their Sunbeam Tiger, ahead of the Porsche 911s of Howard Warren and Charles Colton.

Day three would be the warmest and most beautiful of all, as the rally headed further north and west across the Highlands after a test and three regularities above the Dornoch Firth. Lunch at the Kylesku Hotel was an outside affair for most, glorious fresh cod and chips eaten while baking in warm sunshine overlooking one of the finest unspoiled lochs and glens of them all. A run around the achingly beautiful and peaceful Drumbeg coast road was followed by a long regularity on the coastal road from Inverpolly, then inland and back to the sea at Ullapool. A long and beautiful run back across the Highlands brought crews to Inverness for the night, after a military test at the Cameron Barracks in the city. The day saw Howard Warren’s 911 overtake the Bairds, who sadly chose to retire at the end of the day and limp home to Ireland with a failed clutch.

Day four was distillery day, as the rally headed east into the lush farmland of Morayshire and the Spey valley, with a series of tricky regularities in the morning followed by lunch at Johnston’s of Elgin, then distillery after distillery with a couple of tests – Glenfarclas and Macallan – thrown in and a regularity to finish en route to Aviemore. This was the day that the competitive pace cranked up but with the Tiger out, the two 911s of Warren and Colton extended their lead ahead of the strongly competitive1969 Mini-Cooper S of Hubert and Diane Lynch.

The final day began with the last of the boggling Aviemore car park tests, followed by regularities through the pretty surroundings of Loch Garten, home of Scotland’s most successful Osprey reintroduction, and over the Cairngorms to another event highlight: Balmoral. The Queen didn’t appear to welcome us, but we did get to line the cars up in front of the castle, an area normally reserved for royalty and estate vehicles – though showery rain for the first time detracted a little from the location, disappointing after four days of beautiful, warm weather. An excellent lunch at Dalmunzie House was followed by two more regularities as the rally headed down from the mountains towards Perth and the final test immediately before the imposing finish at Scone Palace, seat of Scottish kings for generations.

It’d been a magnificent week and the prizegiving breakfast, back in the beautiful Hopetoun House with the weather dry once more, on Saturday morning saw a room full of happy faces and a hubbub of excited voices. The full list of prizewinners can be seen elsewhere but special mention must go to the two Porsche 911s of Howard Warren/Brian Goff and Charles Colton/Peter Stokes, who finished first and second overall: Warren and Colton are business partners who discovered historic rallying as a means of exercising their little-used classics three years ago and reckon it’s the best thing they ever did. Other stars included the little MG TD of Mark and Sue Godfrey, second best overall on regularities, the enthusiastically-driven 1935 Bentley Special of Elliott Dale and Trina Walsh, 10th overall and the pretty little Delage of Roy Williams and John Lindsey, substituted at the last minute when Roy’s Riley wasn’t ready and nursed through the event, ending it tied together with ratchet straps after a rear spring broke: despite it all, Roy was never without a smile and deservedly collected the Spirit of the Rally trophy.

Roll on Scotland, 2007!