Meet the man who’s circumnavigating the globe in a Dodge Challenger

Meet Keith Sinclair: a 28-year-old from Albuquerque, New Mexico, who’s almost halfway through his goal of circumnavigating the globe in a Dodge Challenger. Yes, you read right. You know that puffy-cheeked muscle car built for racing between the lights, and not for crossing thousands upon thousands of miles across the planet? 

“My father raised me around lots of backpacking and camping, which then saw me branch into a series of ambitious trips when I got to university”, Sinclair told TopGear.com. “It started with a solo hike of the Appalachian Trail during my first Spring Break as a 19-year-old, before I headed to the Faroe Islands, working various service jobs to fund my travels. That was my first time leaving the US.”

These trips became progressively more ambitious until they led him to where he is now: having successfully trekked from Le Havre, France to Almaty in Kazakhstan, chalking up nearly 19,000 miles of travel across 18 different countries. In a Dodge Challenger. We’re still trying to wrap our minds around that concept.

“I realised the world is more accessible than we think. Going through Kazakhstan and Tajikistan for example is certainly not simple, but it’s doable. And seeing and experiencing those cultures in a muscle car is a unique way to do it. The locals were fascinated by it.”

TG: Tell us again why you’ve chosen to do this in a big muscle car.

KS: I’ve always loved antique muscle; my dream car is a ‘70s Charger. Of all the modern muscle cars, I feel like the Challenger captures the essence of traditional muscle the most. It’s not the most powerful or the fastest, but it has so much personality. 

The car came to me at a time of need, when I was working 16 or 17-hour days. Getting behind the wheel and going on a road trip felt like a respite and a break from what I was doing. I then wanted to expand on that and dreamt up the crazy idea of circumnavigating the globe in it. To say it’s been rewarding so far would be an understatement.

Given it any upgrades?

Originally, all I did was put a hitch on it and add a hammock - nothing else was changed. But I then added a roof box with sucker bars to keep it planted. It gives me a lot more room, but it’s impacted the ground clearance quite a lot. This really affected me in places like Albania and Turkey because the car’s underbelly was being scraped so regularly. 

I have a bunch of repairs and upgrades that I want to complete before I continue on what will be the second leg of the journey. I want to install a lift kit, bigger tyres and stronger control arms. I might add a light bar up top too, but that’s more for aesthetics than practicality.

I’ve just kept it simple and done what basics I can to turn the Challenger into an over-landing vehicle. I think the message can be taken by anyone who has a car: if you love camping, take whatever you have and go and use it for just that. I’ve even got friends who’ve used Priuses for this sort of thing before.

Tell us about the route.

It’s taken me five-and-a-half months to get from Le Havre to Almaty. I spent around two months in Europe and three in Russia and Central Asia. I’m a huge advocate for spontaneous travel: the less you plan, the more every day becomes an unknown adventure. 

The road surfaces and conditions change regularly. A lot of the roads were practically inaccessible. Take the Pamir Highway for instance. It was rough, nobody thought I should or could cross it, and just because I managed to, it doesn’t mean you should. It was memorable though, especially the holistic experience of driving a car like this across roads like that. It gave me a far more memorable experience than I would’ve got doing this in, say, a Land Rover.

Any mechanical issues?

The clutch burned out because I was feathering it so often in first gear. It was an aftermarket racing clutch too, which wasn’t designed for that sort of thing, so I burned through the plates faster than I should have. This happened in Tajikistan, and the solution was… unconventional.

A group of locals helped me fuse a pair of old Russian Lada discs, and that’s what the car currently has. It’s a hanky fix, but it works. The rear differential is starting to make a few awkward sounds too, so I’ll get that replaced before continuing. I’d rather the car didn’t fail on me in the more rural parts of the second leg.

Speaking of which, how’s the remainder of the journey looking?

I’ll be returning to Almaty in the next few days to reunite with my car and get any final prep work done before hitting the road. The rest of the trip, I imagine, will take me about 18 months. I’ll be exploring Uzbekistan first, like the ancient Silk Road cities, and then Turkmenistan. From there it’s a free fall through Asia; Afghanistan through to Pakistan and India. There, I’ll be taking the car around parts of the Himalayas and hiking up the Annapurna Circuit.

After Nepal, I’ll keep heading east to China, down to Vietnam, and then to either Thailand or Cambodia. From there, I’m going to try and ship the car to Taiwan if I somehow can, and then ship it again to Japan to finish the journey in Tokyo - which would be super cool given the car culture there. I’m estimating this leg will add another 20,000 miles, bringing the total journey to 35,000 miles in two years.

Incredible.

As a human being, it opens your heart up. You’ll carry a piece of each culture with you for the remainder of your life. You learn stories and gain wisdom from a huge scope of people, and above all else, it builds resilience. 

As a car person, the one thing this journey has given me, and I don’t mean to sound too cheesy here, is that I feel at one with the Challenger. It’s become an extension of me to the point where I’ve never felt more part of an inanimate object. I’m very much aware it’s just a material item, but I feel a sincere attachment to it because of what it has allowed me to do. That for me is the definition of man and machine working together.